The Most Pointless Quest
by Keolah
Summary: A kitsune and a werecat go off on the most pointless quest in history.
1. Fox Hunt

**A/N: This story was written in 2006 and is part of the Interdimensional Bridge Saga. This is another entry point into the saga, introducing some new characters.**

**This story is based on the World of Darkness setting from White Wolf, the tabletop roleplaying game "Dungeons and Dragons" from Wizards of the Coast, along with mentions of the tabletop wargame "Warhammer 40,000" from Games Workshop, among possibly others.**

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**Prologue: Fox Hunt**

Such a lovely world he'd found himself in, so much untasted and untested potential lurking about in the dark corners where no one might suspect it. There was something to be said for the workings of madness in a land only recently escaped from it, and while he had arrived during and thoroughly enjoyed the Slaaneshi pageantry, he supposed it was time to move on and see what other wonders this universe had to offer.

Known to others, in distant lands, as Jez'kai, Arkadi Stark, or simply 'you crazy, sick, motherfucking bastard!', he strolled casually along the streets of Torn Elkandu with an eye turned toward the next angle, the next meal, or merely the next turning of the dark card. Clad conservatively in a business suit which had once cost him more than most of his enemies were worth, certainly after their demises.

There was entertainment afoot, though, and he munched merrily on a handful of popcorn from a bag he'd acquired from a street vendor. A lovely lady, that one, perhaps he'd invite her to dinner later.

Sindri and Manasa were hanging around Torn Elkandu when a wonderful poster had just popped into existence near Sindri informing everyone of an upcoming tournament. The Eighth Septennial Grand Elkandu Magic Competition.

Sindri was curious about it since he hasn't seen many "mages" around, or if there were, they weren't showing off.

"Oh, another competition," Manasa said. "Those are always amusing, to watch if nothing else... People are always pulling crazy stunts at them..."

"Strange though, I don't see many people walking around hurling fireballs or lightning bolts."

Manasa raised an eyebrow. "Why would they need to? The town isn't under attack or anything."

"Well, they don't all practice in private, do they?" Sindri said. "I'm sure people must like to show off... I mean, don't these people play with their magic? It can't _all_ be serious business..."

"Well, sure," Manasa said. "They're just so used to it by now that they tend to use it without even really thinking about it and don't do it randomly for no reason anymore than a dancer just randomly dances around all the time..."

Sindri shrugged.

"A lot of it is more subtle than that anyway," Manasa said. "Skimming, shields, telekinesis... I don't think anyone at all trained in Mind or Seeking really goes without using it all the time."

Arkadi walked casually along the street, listening here and there to those whose conversations have the least bit of interest or potential for entertainment, settling at last into a walk behind two who seemed intent to wonder upon the nature of power gone missing in this place. Intriguing.

"I remember, back on the Bringer of the Word, when the Sorcerers got bored we'd play 'fireball tennis'," Sindri said. "Four played; one of us would create a fireball and hurl it at the other two. The other two would use telekinetics to throw it back and so it went... One of the few truly entertaining memories I've got from those days."

A gnome presently flew screaming overhead. Manasa smirked up at him and said, "Around here, they play Gnome Tennis."

Ah yes, the joys of expanded potential available in this world, it was a subject Arkadi had pursued at some length at one of the local institutions. Anyone with the gift to do so could learn such fascinating things, and he was nothing if not long-versed in such pursuits.

"Gnome Tennis?" Sindri said. "Wasn't there another planet where they played something similar with goblins? The trolls would see how far they could kick one or some such..."

"Lezaria," Manasa said. "They play Goblin Toss there. The object seemed to be who could throw the goblin furthest..."

"Yes. Rather similar here, apparently."

Arkadi rolls his eyes in distaste as the conversation swung to the abuse of minor creatures, the nature of minions and underlings ever a dull topic. He turned his tread to go around them, considering implications and applications even now of ideas long held as static. Fools, they were all fools.

Manasa stopped outside one of the many taverns in Torn Elkandu and glanced up at the sign that showed some animal which was not its normal color doing something strange with a bottle. "That's one interesting sign," she commented.

Sindri eyed it. It was impossible to determine just what sort of animal it was supposed to be, but its present activity appears to be fairly obscene.

Continuing onward with only the barest glance at the overheard indication, Arkadi pursued the road onward, checking the watch at his wrist idly with a dry chuckle. Time really was irrelevant, yet somehow it still held a fascination for him. Especially in Torn Elkandu, which only tended to bother with day and night cycles for the benefit of those who disliked sunlight.

"Could be a leftover from the Chaos days," Sindri said.

Manasa glanced absently at the man passing, thinking him fairly strangely dressed for this locale, but shrugging it off as all sorts of strange types seemed to pass through Torn Elkandu.

Manasa snorted. "Do you think Chaos really had that much of an affect on them? They were having orgies in the streets _before_ Chaos showed up on the scene. That was really more of a cause than an effect, probably. I'm surprised we haven't had to step around naked bodies so far here."

Sindri chuckled and shrugged. "I suppose so."

Chaos, Arkadi mused, they had held such potential if they had simply managed to gather their scattered wits and look past the utter dedication to a single aspect of what could be. A pity, really, but he supposed that there truly was little in life which was perfect. The thought brought him beyond the range of their conversation, his path wending into an alleyway in hopes of finding someone foolish enough to consider him easy prey.

Manasa said, "Let's go get something to eat or drink here, shall we?" She turned for the door.

People in Torn Elkandu weren't normally inclined to randomly attack one another. At least when not involved with Khorne.

"Sure, I'm a bit hungry," Sindri said.

Manasa headed inside and ordered a nice steak and some wine. Sindri followed, a beer in place of the wine.

"Been awhile since we've had a meal together in a fine establ...er...it's been awhile since we've had a meal together," Sindri said.

Manasa leaned back in the chair in the corner table and glanced over the dimly lit room. "Hmm. This place isn't so bad. Although the strippers are a bit much."

Said strippers appeared to be various, well, anthropomorphic animals. And being naked probably wasn't all that much considering they were covered in fur anyway.

Sindri looked at them and smirked. "Explains the sign outside..."

Their food and drinks arrived shortly and Manasa poked at the steak with a fork. "Mmm, this is good..." Manasa murmured.

One of the naked furries started playing a flute.

"Ah, some dinner music," Sindri said.

"So, what do you suppose we'll do after this?" Manasa said. "You gonna enter the competition?"

"I don't know... I'm not sure of how I would fare against the mages here."

"Well, it's not for a couple months, you could practice in the meanwhile."

"Are there certain categories?" Sindri asked. "How does the system work?"

"I'm sure you'd do just fine," Manasa said. "Normally there's different events that focus on different talents. For instance, there might be one for telepathy, one for telekinetics, etc. Then more general events where anything goes."

The kitsune knew he'd gotten away and was around here someplace, but half the fun of the game was chasing someone down to deliver the punch line of the joke they were just dying for. Fantasia cast a half-lidded gaze across the audience, knowing he wasn't here but feeling a hint of his stink someplace, the fluffed tips of her tails swaying gently to the rhythm of the flute. Always loved music.

Crooning softly at first, then rising to accompany the flute in a melodic counterpart, she sways across the stage in prancing steps. Her multiple tails swing in hypnotic rhythm, never allowing their number to be counted and more often than not concealing more than the earlier stripping had revealed. Somewhere nearby, she could almost taste it, but where? The crooning emerged into a soft song.

"Appears we have someone that likes the music," Sindri said, eying the fox.

"Hmm, that one looks like she's met Harmony," Manasa commented, observing over a bite of steak.

Who, who, who? Fantasia wondered to herself, the questing note melding inevitably into the seemingly meaningless song, and she walked slowly down the stairs from the stage to wend her way through the tables with a playful flirt here and there.

Manasa leaned back, taking a sip of her wine and listening to the music and watching the people (and various beings that might only be loosely called "people") milling about the establishment.

A snow-white tail slapped lightly at the hands of an overly exuberant patron, though the mirthful, foxish grin which followed took the sting from it. She continued through the crowd, ears perked alertly and whiskers twitching as she scented at the air.

"Nah, if she'd met Harmony, she'd be waving thirty tentacles around and have six sets of antlers," Sindri said.

"You have a point there," Manasa said with a chuckle.

No, not that one, Fantasia knew, a few tables away now and knowing she was closer, that bringing a rising crescendo to the song. Quick eyes darted in their direction questioningly as the scent seemed to crystallize, and her velvet voice falls silent as she approached their table and offered a tilt of her elegant muzzle.

"Good evening," the kitsune said.

Manasa waved absently with a hand. "Hiya." She put down her wine glass.

"Evening," Sindri replied.

"Forgive the intrusion and my state of undress," Fantasia offered courteously. "The second is readily corrected." Her form melted away from the elegance of the fox to the equally sleek form of a young-seeming oriental woman, fully clothed in a close-fitting dress of red and green. "Enjoying your meal?"

"Oh, certainly, and I don't really mind," Manasa said offhandedly. "Though the steak is a little rare, I don't imagine there are any troubles with mad cow disease in this part of the universe." She smirked.

"Only the barkeeper's wife, if you call her one," Fantasia replied with a ready grin.

"I've seen worse places," Sindri agreed with a mouth half-full.

Without awaiting an invitation or asking one, Fantasia borrowed a chair from a nearby table and settled into it casually. "Introductions are needed all around before I ask the question that I'm dying to. I'm Fantasia, at least that's the only name I tend to go by. In public. Or when wanting to be anonymous. Heh."

Manasa chuckled softly. "No, I will refrain from addressing the barkeeper's spouse as a bovine. Well, unless, of course, she actually _is_ a bovine, which is not beyond reason considering some of the others here apparently."

Sindri chuckled and took a swig of his beer. "Anything _is_ possible around here..."

"My name's Manasa, from Edron," she said. She most probably did have a last name, and also very probably had a good reason for not stating it.

"The name's Sindri." He extended his hand. "Former Chaos Sorcerer turned ne'er-do-well." He smirked.

"A pleasure to meet you both," Fantasia replied, extending a hand to accept Sindri's without qualm, either unknowing or uncaring what the affiliation meant.

"So what brings you here?" Manasa wondered.

"Ah, now there's a tail or three to tell!" Fantasia answered with bright enthusiasm. "Though it'd probably bore you to tears if you weren't the sort who was able to take a joke, or enjoy one at someone else's expense." She chuckled. "Short version, though, I'm looking for someone that you've brushed up against. He's an... old friend of mine." Her jade eyes flashed merry hell at that, giving question to the use of the term.

"A 'friend'?" Sindri repeated.

"Well yes," Fantasia nodded once, grinning slyly. "You know the type, common interests, shared entertainments, bodies to hide. The usual."

Manasa chuckled softly. "I'm sure I'm not likely to be too easily bored... I'm a former telemarketer after all."

It was open to question which of Manasa's and Sindri's former occupations was the more evil.

Fantasia made a face at that, looking at Manasa, "Ew, now that's evil. Seriously. Eek. And you admit to this? In public?"

"Not normally. These days I prefer necromancy," she said lightly.

"As if Chaos wasn't bad enough..." Sindri remarked at the telemarketer comment.

Fantasia laughed gaily, amusement seeming a common enough state for her. "Oh, that's a good one, better the dead than telemarketing."

"I must say I'm not particularly good at raising the dead just yet, and can only animate the lesser forms of undead such as zombies, and they have a habit of collapsing and falling apart on me," Manasa said. "But I'm getting better."

"Sounds like you'd be a natural at a Republican fund raiser," Fantasia replied.

"Oh, I'm sure they'd have wished I was there when they kept having to prop up Dick Cheney," Manasa said.

Sindri looked confused at the both of them.

"One stiff or another," Fantasia retorted with a smirk. "Personally I'd rather do the stripping gig."

"Indeed," Manasa said. "It's less demeaning."

"And at least they're honest about wanting to screw you over," Fantasia said.

"Or just screw you, be it the case..." Sindri rolled his eyes and finished his steak.

Manasa poured herself some more wine.

Fantasia grinned lightly and reached out to snag a spare napkin which she began to fold idly. "Ooh, the conversation killer strikes again. Well anyway, back to the question of the moment. Now, don't get me wrong, but you guys stink..."

"Why, thank you," Manasa said. "I don't believe we properly bathed after the last time we had sex."

Fantasia looked at the other woman blankly, then worked at stifling a bout of giggles. "Oh, that's bad," she said, "but then where I left off was bad too, right?"

Sindri thought about it a moment. "No, because we wound up having sex in the shower afterwards as well." He shrugged and drank some more beer.

Manasa chuckled softly. "So what was it you wanted to ask about then?"

Fantasia snickered, shaking her head at the pair, then grinned. "See, it's like you stepped through the path of a skunk without realizing it. Most aren't even gonna pay attention to it, but this particular one is someone I've been looking for. Happen to see a guy lately in an oh-so-spiffy suit that screams 'I'm better than thou' and a perpetually-smug look?"

"Yeah, I think I saw him pass us on the street before we came in here," Manasa said.

"I do recall a fellow in a tailored suit," Sindri said. "I would've said he stuck out, but, well..."

"Oooh, he's here and near," Fantasia replied with glee. "Not that I'm going to leap up and go chasing after him, he always hangs around the same place for a while, looking for this, that, and the other thing. Real sweetie. If you're into the soul-sucking bastard type anyway."

"Yeah, it's kind of hard to say that when people are wearing any variety of T-shirts, robes, jeans, tunics, etcetera," Manasa said.

Fantasia chuckled. "It's all in the 'tude, or what passes for it with him. I offered him a one-way ticket to the center of the universe he wanted to be at one point, but he rudely ducked out halfway there. Tsk, tsk. Shameful."

Of course the fact that he'd been trapped on a ship headed for the sun might have had some effect on his decision.

"Well, Torn Elkandu _is_ the center of the universe," Manasa said. "Or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof."

"No matter," Fantasia replied with a faint shrug. "I'll catch up with him soon enough, and then it'll be just like old times." She chuckled lightly and set the folded napkin on the table in two pieces, one appearing to be a wolf standing proud... the other being its head laying on the ground beside it. "Sorry to take so much of your time."

Manasa chuckled softly. "Oh, don't worry. Time is something I imagine we have quite plenty of."

"All the time in the world," Fantasia agreed, body shifting fluidly to return to its werefoxish state as she stood. "But I'll leave you to your meal with my thanks."

Sindri said, "Not much goes on around here that can't be solved with the combined minds of plenty of intelligent, wise mages...or a fireball or ten."

"If it's intelligent, wise mages you're looking for, you've come to the wrong place," Manasa said. "The ones around here tend to be batshit."

"Uh-oh, it's the fuzz!" Fantasia muttered, ears pricking forward as she looked toward the far side of the tavern to see a rather irate-looking barkeep's wife sailing their way. With a yip, she shifted once more to a small, four-legged version of herself and darted under their table, vanishing from sight.

Sindri looked at Manasa and quirked an eyebrow.

The barkeep's wife, face brick red in her fury, stopped at their table and glared at both of them, then remembering she was addressing customers drew a deep calming breath. "Pardon the intrusion," she said, "But did you see where a certain..." she edited out a few choice expletives in favor of courtesy, "werefox made off to?"

"Can't say that I did," Manasa said lightly, munching absently on a bit of steak.

Sindri looked up at her with a mouth full of potato and said something unintelligible.

The portly woman looked down at the table, making note of the origami figure, and clenched her teeth. "Thank you anyway," she grated and turned to stalk away. As she did, a black button-like nose and coal eyes glinting merrily could be seen lurking in the folds of her apron.

Manasa sniggered silently.

"Well, that was... interesting," Manasa observed once that was done with.

"Indeed," Sindri said. "Wonder what sort of problem she has with that fellow?"

Manasa finished up her meal and stretched a bit.

"I suppose if one caught the other with someone else or something..." He shrugged, polishing off his beer.

From the kitchen, there came an inevitable shriek of surprise and a round of violent cursing.


	2. Catnapping

Off in the gardens on the west side of Torn Elkandu, the trees were shrouded in calm and quiet shadow, brightly colored flowers belying the false light of the Ethereal Plane growing around their feet. A nearby fountain bubbles, its trickling the only sound that can be heard aside from the distant sounds of people talking on the streets and the occasional twitter of birds.

Fantasia tended to work on whim and whimsy most of the time. It was all part of the muse that led to music and kept it fresh for so many years without it growing dull. Still did, that muse kept her moving and roving about when she wasn't at 'work' in one way or another, and today she'd found a need to get away from the bar for a bit after having yet another run-in with the barkeep's wife.

The woman really had no sense of humor! Well, none that a fox scurrying quickly out the back door with a rolling pin hot on her heels could detect anyway. At least the pursuit had gone no further than the end of the alley as the woman had realized that the streaking form was moving much faster than she could ever hope to. Oh well, there were hours left yet til her shift anyway, poking her nose around town would help them pass.

Gardens weren't generally a high point in places to hang out in, far too quiet and devoid of interesting life to interact with, but peace and quiet had its advantages too... sometimes. Occasionally. The small white fox scampered from the cover of tree to tree, and upon spying the fountain dropped by for a quick drink before looking around a bit more.

A shadow moved within the trees and she spotted the large, dark form of a black panther crouched on a sturdy limb overhead, peering down at her with emerald green eyes that seemed fairly out of place on such an animal.

Lapping the cool water, Fantasia didn't immediately respond to the newly arrived presence other than watching it with glittering black eyes. Not likely to be seeing a wild animal this close to a city, not that much at ease and without causing a panic, so probably a shapeshifter like the Bagheera from the Bastet.

She settled to her haunches, looking up at the cat curiously, then melded to the half-human form and folded long legs beneath her. "And who are you?" she asked, head tilting and a foxish grin creasing her muzzle.

The panther cocked her head at the fox and hopped down from the tree smoothly and casually shifted into the form of a female wood elf, dark hair, pointy ears, and the same green eyes. She gave a nod of greeting and said, "Thorn."

"Fantasia," she replied in greeting, grinning still and the curve and sway of the multiple tails lending to a cheerfully at-ease impression. "Haven't seen another shapeshifter since coming out this way, though from the ears I'd have to guess you're native rather than what I thought you might be. Probably a good thing, Bastet are too smug and secretive to make good conversationalists anyway."

"I'm from the Elkandu world of Daresa," Thorn replied. "What's a Bastet?" She quirked an eyebrow.

"Bastet? Well..." Fantasia scratched under her chin, eyes turning upward in deliberately thoughtful mode. "Let's see, they're smug and secretive, already covered that, the rest of it's pretty dull stuff like what species they were born as." She chuckled lightly, ticking off fingers. "They've got lynxes, tigers, lions, jaguars, cheetahs, whatever the hell the Bubasti are, and panthers of course. They also lump the Ajaba, were-hyenas under them for some bizarre reason. I think it's gotta be some kind of joke, personally."

"Oh," Thorn said, smirking faintly and not even trying to make sense of how hyenas were related to cats. "My brother's a weretiger... But he's over in Daresa still. I kind of miss him."

"Just be glad he's not from where I am," Fantasia replied. "The Khan, the weretigers, had absolutely _no_ concept or understanding of humor. Though it _was_ great fun to tweak their whiskers now and then, so long as you remembered to be moving away very fast right after."

"Well, half-brother technically, as his mother was an orc and mine was an elf... but never mind that..." Thorn snickered softly.

"Sounds like your dad got around about as much as mine did," Fantasia smirked. "Though I doubt there's any orcs hanging from the branches of the family tree."

"Yeah, we had another half-brother called Asterian but I haven't heard what might have happened to him in ages... he was supposedly a 'pureblood' whatever that's supposed to mean..." Thorn shrugged faintly.

"Probably supposed to be some sort of straight vanilla shapeshifter," Fantasia replied. "Though that's all that you get back where I come from. But hey, what more do you really need when you've got kitsune about? We're foxes, what more needs to be said?"

Fantasia struck a pose, echoing the hauteur of some of her pureblood kin, then ruined the illusion by giggling.

"I don't know," Thorn said. "Apparently my father was from a world with a lot of shapeshifters... never told me just where or even what it was called though. Guess he was afraid that I might want to visit or something. Can't imagine why, though."

"Psht," Fantasia retorts, waving a hand dismissively, "They're not all they're cracked up to be anyway. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! What a pain, they're inevitably gonna run around bashing each other's skulls in and generally not getting along unless someone steps up and makes em stop."

Things were well on the way to that when she'd skipped out, just about done really, no way in hell she'd have taken on the job of babysitter for all the unruly shapeshifters!

"And my father could turn into anything he wanted... he said it was because he was of the nobility or something... I don't get it." Thorn shrugged. "I think that's what he meant about my other brother, though, that he could turn into anything too."

"Oh..." Fantasia replied, looking suddenly and unhealthily interested in that little tidbit. "Anything they want to? Oh my, can you imagine the _fun_ that could be had with that?" She could, and light danced merrily in her eyes as she thought of the possibilities.

"Yeah," Thorn said. "Even things that don't really exist. But I haven't seen my father since the Temporal Convergence, and nobody around here knew or would tell me whatever happened to him. Although I suspect a couple of them might have known... They got a bit nervous about the matter when I asked, but refused to talk and claimed to know nothing." She sighed.

Leaping lightly to her feet, Fantasia grinned and in a bad accent said, "Ve haff vays uf makink you talk!" Returning to normal speech, she went on, "What? Come on! You can't tell me that you settled for someone hiding something from you! Half the fun is poking your nose into places that people don't want it to be, then not being there anymore when they decide to get cranky about it."

"Well, generally I don't feel like pressing the matter when the person involved could incinerate me into small free-floating bites of ash with a thought or rip my mind inside out if I annoyed them."

"But but but..." Fantasia replied. "That's the _other_ half of the fun! Not knowing when to say when, but when to say 'I'm outta here!' before they get the drop on ya!" She chuckled and shrugged. "But hey, that's just me and my approach, your mileage may vary."

She'd gotten more miles out of that than she could remember, generally because they were spent at high speed with something snapping at her tails.

"If you say so," Thorn said. "Apparently there was another version of myself before the Temporal Convergence who was apparently killed or something. But I haven't been able to find details on that either. Also, time travel sucks."

"Y'know, I bet every Trek geek out there would agree," Fantasia nodded. "Nothing but trouble comes out of traveling through time, not that the idea wouldn't be tempting now and again just to see what fun could be had with it. Can you imagine going back to the sixties and sticking a 'You are Here!' flag at the landing spot on the moon? They'd have a cow!" She snickered, knowing that it was a good thing she couldn't do that.

"What?" Thorn said in confusion, scratching her head, clearly entirely failing to get the joke. "I must have missed that planet, sorry."

"No biggie," Fantasia chuckled lightly. "I'm sure earth got paved over for a galactic highway or something in this universe, no big loss really. They seem to have made up for it and then some with the oddities that're wandering around this place."

"If you say so," Thorn chuckled. "There's plenty to see in this universe regardless. I don't think I've even seen the half of it. Daresa's a nice place... the stars are pretty..."

Tucking her tails in, or at least that was how Fantasia thought of the odd ability all of her kind had to hide all but one of their tails, she crossed back to sit at the edge of the fountain. "So what's on Daresa?" she asked, "Shapeshifters, obviously, and stars..." she yawned broadly, "booooring! So how's the nightlife?"

"Well, there's a city called Fesirya Kren, the Silver Towers, that's on an island off the main continent, that has these huge towers spiring into the sky, with millions of people living there... but mostly elves, some humans. Aitur tried to wipe out all the non-elves at one point..."

"Elrond, Agent Elrond," Fantasia said seriously, drawing a pair of black sunglasses from somewhere and setting them at the bridge of her muzzle, "Humanity is a virus, Mr. Hobbitson, I can smell it, I can taste it..."

Thorn stared at her in confusion again. "What?"

Fantasia tossed the glasses aside with an exaggerated sigh. "I'm in a land of cultural barbarians! At least the Glass Walkers made the Matrix, the original mind you, not the schlock sequels," she clarifies with an outthrust tongue in distaste, "part of the required viewing for the kiddies, and who hasn't seen the Lord of the Rings? Eh, oh well. Heh, as you were saying, Barnabas?"

Thorn blinked a bit more and looks at her as if she was speaking Portuguese. "Er, I'll take your word on that, I think... Suppose I've hung around here long enough, I don't know what I'm still _doing_ here what with Chaos gone, as I'd originally come to fight it... I wonder what Kax is up to back home..."

"Heh," Fantasia sighed again, grinning a bit still. "Fair enough. I surrender and won't use bizarre pop culture references anymore. Well, much anyway. As for what you're doing here..." She shrugged, the grin brightening. "I've heard a bit about these Chaos weirdos, but since they're gone maybe you're hanging around for the bustling party scene that still seems to be clinging on around here?"

"Meh, that's calmed down since then lately too," Thorn said with a smirk. "Things were really wild here for awhile, so I hear. But not so much anymore."

"There's always something to be found going on," Fantasia snorted lightly in reply. "People might be laying low a bit after the fracas that left all that trouble in its wake, but they'll wake up to it again soon enough. Barring that, sounds like you're thinking about heading for home anyway, why not take advantage of that then? Can't be any worse than being bored and drifting aimlessly."

Thorn gave a shrug. "Hey, Daresa's a nice place. Except when people are trying to kill you and when people are starting wars over stupid things and crazy people are running around like mad and doing crazy things.."

"Let's see," Fantasia replied, ticking off on her fingers. "Trying to kill you, check, stupid wars, check, and crazy people, triple check. Heh, sounds like home, to me." She chuckled lighly and dipped a hand into the fountain, cupping a bit of water for a quick cooling sip. "Sounds like anywhere, really," she added, looking back to the other woman. "And at least you don't have to worry about being shot for what you are."

"I'm sure some people have tried that at various points, but they all kind of blended in with the ones who were shooting at me for being in Tempest, or shooting at me for being where I happened to be at the time, or shooting at me for looking funny..."

Fantasia grinned. "Have a habit of finding yourself at the sharp end of pointy things too, huh? Not so bad when you get the trick of how to avoid the real nasty part of that down, and really there's nothing more fun than making someone stop taking themselves so seriously for a minute, even if it means laughing and running like hell afterwards."

Thorn smirked. "Well, if you like, I could give you the guided tour of Daresa or something... It's a nice place, really it is... kind of... for the most part..."

Returning to her human form with a quicksilver rippling, Fantasia smiled and looks over at the water in the fountain, splashing at it playfully.

"Much as I'd like to take you up on that offer," she said, "There's something I have to take care of here first, and not sure how long that's gonna be. All depends on paranoia and sneakiness." It _would_ be fun to see someplace new, but...

Thorn chuckled softly. "What's that, then?"

"Just some old business," Fantasia replied, the smile quirking to a more normal mischievous grin. "Just doesn't sit quite right when someone skips out on a command performance before the grand finale, y'know? Besides..." she added, face contorting to a comical expression of disgust. "You don't even want to know what could be going on until it's taken care of. Ew." She could guess, and wished she couldn't. Ew again.

"So what're you doing here instead of taking care of that then?" Thorn said with a faint grin-smirk.

"Er, well, see..." Fantasia's grin returned, though vaguely embarrassed. "I've been doing a little work on the side, pay the rent and that sort of thing, and well the boss's wife got a little ticked off about some of the things I've been up to. Decided it was a good time to make myself scarce for a bit." She wasn't about to mention the nature of the conflict, not in polite company at any rate!

Thorn continued to look confused. "'Pay the rent'? They have rent in Torn Elkandu? Well, I suppose if you're not a High Elkandu... I wouldn't know, nobody ever came up to _me_ and demanded money... well, aside from the fact that I'd rather sleep in the garden anyway, it's much nicer out here..."

Fantasia chuckled lightly. "Just a figure of speech, old habits die hard when you're raised by a Tribe who has a totem called O'-Mighty-Dolla." She shrugged. "It gives me something to do and keep under the lights, entertaining a bit now and again when I'm not busy on the run."

"I imagine, but then it's not like she could actually _do_ anything to you. Well, unless she's a Catalyst or a Chronomancer or a telepath or something, that'd be bad to tick off, yeah, but then again if she were you'd probably not be here talking to me..."

"Well no..." Fantasia replied. "But that's not really the point. I don't necessarily _mean_ to get into trouble sometimes, it just kinda... finds me sometimes. I can't really blame people for getting ticked off about it, even if I _could_ make them regret it. I save that particular brand of fun for those who deserve it."

Thorn chuckled. "Well, that sounds like every other Elkandu I've known, especially former members of Tempest... Like Azale..." She smirked broadly.

"I mean, how was I supposed to know they were related?" Fantasia muttered, then rolled her eyes and looked back to Thorn. "Anyway, yeah, I've heard some of the horror stories going around about these Elkandu, and even if I _can_ do some of the same things, doesn't mean that my father or all the people involved raising me wouldn't kill me if they found out I did."

Thorn smirked. "'Elkandu' is really a very general term for anyone capable of channeling or utilizing the Ethereal Plane. But it's generally more specifically applied to said channelers who are native to this universe of late, as random people from other universes don't tend to like to be called Elkandu for some reason, even if that's how the term was originally used."

"Considering what I've heard about em," Fantasia smirked, "I wouldn't want to get stuck with that little label either. But hey, each to their own and all that, as long as they remember that there's people out there that might take notice sometime and give em a cosmic wedgie."

"I'm technically an Elkandu, too," Thorn said. "I tend to fall under the category of 'illusionist'." She smirked a bit.

"Shhh," Fantasia replied conspiratorially, looking around with a suddenly suspicious gaze, and whispered, "Don't tell anyone, but so do I." She snickered and stuck her tongue out. Magic was very, _very_ foxy to the kitsune, and illusion was about the best it got as far as she was concerned!

Thorn chuckled softly. "But I don't tend to rate as 'high' as 'true' Elkandu, since it only works if I'm around plants. Meh."

Fantasia blinked, looking confused. "Plants. And illusion. Uhhhh, how does that work exactly? And is it even worth doing? I mean I've done some pretty nifty and outrageous things with it, that's just what kitsune do after all, but unless you're being chased through the woods by a horde of homicidal Gurahl out for your head for singing the 'Teddy Bear Picnic' at one of their get-togethers, I don't see where it'd be really useful."

Yes, that was one of her fonder memories, in fact, the opportunity having presented itself at the paws of one of her fellow band mates at the time. She missed that band. Heh.

Thorn blinked for a moment. "What's a Gurahl?"

Fantasia grinned and whistled a spritely tune that Thorn would likely never identify, though Bear would have laughed and gotten into his dancing rhythm at the opportunity provided by the 'Bear Necessities' from the Jungle Book.

"Hehe, Gurahl are werebears," Fantasia replied after a moment. "Solitary, generally cranky, and take themselves waaaaay too seriously. They can sure move when they're annoyed, though!"

Thorn smirked faintly, and spun around and vanished. "Like so," she said, chuckling again as she dropped the illusion again. "Thankfully, potted plants and the like are usually enough, too..."

She laughed lightly, shaking her head, then walked around the elven woman after seeing her display, eyeing her thoughtfully. "So, what, you carry a houseplant in your pocket so you can keep up the illusion?"

"Oddly enough, some people I've talked to seem surprised that I wasn't turning _into_ a potted plant. But no, I generally don't bother. Because, thankfully, that isn't the only ability I possess." She winked.

Grinning, Fantasia nodded. "There's something to be said for getting a bit of a boost from putting on a tailor-fit fur coat, beyond the obvious that is."

"Nah, not that," Thorn said, chuckling. "Although that _is_ handy at times. Nah, nah. Watch this!" She rubbed her hands together then held them out, and a multitude of brightly colored flowers grew up in front of Fantasia and opened.

"Well that's handy," Fantasia admitted, ducking down to snag one of the flowers, then looking back to Thorn with a grin. "Some of the Glass Walkers would have loved to get a hold of you, crazy people wanting to set things growing everywhere in the city. Like the weeds weren't enough!" She sniffed the flower and chuckled lightly.

"Unfortunately, it just tends to be fairly conspicuous when a kudzu randomly starts growing in an office..."

"So?" Fantasia smirked. "If you have a sudden need for a bit of sneakiness to get out of a jam, what's wrong with adding a little green to the world? Lot better than adding a bit of red, don't ya think?"

Thorn chuckled. "My brother would take exception to that... but then he was always the kind to claw first and ask questions later."

"Ick," Fantasia replied. "Don't get me wrong, sometimes you gotta do some wetwork, just ask the wise guys, but that's not normally the kind of thing you should be going around looking to do. Besides," she added with a twisted grin, "If you break your toys, what are you supposed to play with from then on?"

"Eh, he's a half-orc, what do you expect? He's a good deal less temperamental than most of them. That is, he doesn't randomly raid villages and such."

"And you said you're what, half elf?" Fantasia asked, then snickered. "Sounds like you definitely got the better end of the deal. Let's see... tall, dark, bad-tempered, and ugly, or tall, fair, elegant, and good-looking? Hmm, tough choice there..."

Thorn chuckled. "Hey, orcs aren't all bad... ... at least they're honest. Unlike humans a lot of the time."

"Hey now!" Fantasia replied. "We humans are perfectly capable of being honest and forthright..." she grins, "It's just that it doesn't always work in our best interests to do so. Can you imagine a complete run of honest politicians? I think the universe would implode!"

"Although when orcs are honest, it's generally being honest about wanting to kill you..."

"That kind of honesty I can generally live without, thanks." Fantasia blahed, "Like there aren't enough people out there wanting to shoot, stab, maul, skin, and hang my body out as shark bait already!" She shivers at a sudden thought, "Eek, yeah, great shark bait, just what everyone needs, Rokea nightmares."

"Maybe I can pass on visiting my brother for a while..." Thorn commented, reconsidering that.

"Family's great and all, but sometimes ya just gotta know when to say no," Fantasia agreed. "Besides, even if he's the most soft-hearted and cuddly of the homicidal orcs, what about the people he's hanging out with?"

"They tend to leave me alone primarily because I could claw their eyes out if they didn't."

"Well yeah," Fantasia laughed. "But still, there's always one blockhead in any crowd." She shrugs, grinning, "Sounds like an interesting group to poke a stick at anyway, provided you've got your running shoes on."

"Eh, they could never catch me." Thorn grinned. "And even if they caught up to me, they could never find me."

"That's the whooooooole point," Fantasia nodded in emphatic agreement, returning to the furred hybrid form and dancing around while jabbing with clenched fists at an invisible opponent. "Jab and duck, stick and run, float like a butterfly and sting like a bee, oh yeah!" She gave up the silliness with a giggle and walked back to sit near the fountain again, tucking the single flower absently behind one ear.

Thorn chuckled faintly and went and sat across from her. "So what're you gonna do then?"

"Not sure," Fantasia replied with a shrug. "Been kinda at loose ends since coming here, other than keeping an eye out for that loose end. Other than that, probably end up poking my nose here and there as the whim strikes."

"Well, _I_ certainly don't know. And no jokes about curling up in the sun or batting around a ball of yarn, either." Thorn snickered.

"Oh don't get me started," Fantasia snickered, remembering a particular Khan who'd been born as a feline and had been readily distracted in just such a fashion. "But I'ma gonna make an offer youse can't refuse..." She looked at Thorn with a quirked grin, then just chuckled as the reference shot overhead and dropped the horrid accent. "Let me see if I can't finish up what I have to, then I'll take you up on that tour if the offer's still open. If nothing else, sounds like there should be a few things just _dying_ to meet me over there. Heh."

"Heh. Sure thing, sounds like a plan to me." Thorn chuckled again.

"Sooooo," Fantasia stood again, bouncing on her toes a bit as she looked around. "You mentioned preferring the outdoors, that mean I can sneak over this way and probably find you here? Well hey, unless you have a cell phone or something, speaking of which I need to figure out how to hook up with a new plan out here since I'm waaaaaay out of the network."

"What's a cell phone?" Thorn scratched her head. "Well, I'm not really hiding or anything, but then if people want to find somebody they generally ask a Seeker, or if they want to send a message to somebody they ask a telepath..."

"Shhhhh! You'll give a Glass Walker a heart attack talking like that!" Fantasia said, then laughed. "Still getting used to the idea of magic being the next big invention here, though I'm going to miss some of the conveniences... not that the added possibilities don't make up for a lot of that." she finishes with an unsettlingly cheerful and maniacal grin.

"What's a Glass Walker?" Thorn wondered. "Oh, but I think there's magic devices that'll do what you want, too..."

"Ummmmm," Fantasia thought about that one a sec, then tilted her head in a light shrug. "Glass Walkers are one of the tribes of Garou, the wolf shapeshifters. I was raised by them, they're a bunch of normal people with tech fetishes, combining really nifty abilities and their gadgets. They'd probably love to see some of the stuff possible here, since fetishes that allowed things like flight were only possible in the Umbra."

"Umbra?" Thorn wondered. "You mean the Ethereal Plane or something?"

"Yup." Fantasia nodded "That's what it amounts to here, though there's a few differences about it that seem to be pretty specific to where I came from. Heh, that's another thing that the shapeshifters pretty much all had in common, being able to step sideways into the Umbra and make a break for it if things got hairy... or back to the real world if things got too ugly on the Umbra side." She shrugged. "Strange place, but it was home."

"Well, only dreamwalkers can do that here, though most people can manage limited teleportation..."

"I haven't tried it here," Fantasia replied thoughtfully, the idea not having crossed her mind really as it was something that tended to come up when she was on the run or was deliberately looking for something on the other side. "Huh, have to look and see if it still works, or if that was some specific bypass granted by Gaia. Teleportation, well, Gizmo had a few things to allow for that, but the Boss nixed me ever getting one. Heh."

"Then again, Torn Elkandu is technically inside the Ethereal Plane at any rate... And I'm hardly a Seeker to tell you what you can and can't do, anyway..."

Fantasia shook off the momentary seriousness like shedding water from her coat and grinned. "No worries, I'm still looking around and seeing what's what around here, there's still a couple things to figure out... like who the heck is this Shazmar people keep muttering about?" She shrugs, "Time enough to find out, that's what the tails are all about."

"Oh, Shazmar? He's got a temple somewhere around here if you really want to find out..."

"I think I'll do that," Fantasia replied. "The times I've heard him mentioned have really made me curious. Heh. Anyway... It was nice meeting you, Thorn. Hopefully I'll be able to settle things out before you decide to head back home."

"Uh... have fun..." Thorn said, looking at her as if she's crazy for actually considering it, then just shrugged and shifted back into cat form and curled up for a nap in the grass.

"Oh I will!" Fantasia replied brightly, shifting back to fully foxish form and ambling over to lick the cat on the tip of the nose before darting off into the foliage.


	3. Temple of Fun

Temple, hmm? Fantasia toyed with the idea, thinking about the things she should or could be doing instead so she could move on from here, then decided as she was stealing from one corner to the next to look for the place. Cats weren't the only ones who were curious!

The temple wasn't particularly hard to find, having neon flashing lights and a marquee saying "TEMPLE OF SHAZMAR" over the entrance. And the fact that everyone seemed to be giving it a wide berth.

Fantasia was reminded of a movie theater, one that catered to a really goofy or odd crowd, and stole in that direction. Her path led her darting through the towering legs of a centaur handing out pamphlets to anyone and sundry that wasn't ignoring them, but she was through and gone before she'd even really noticed as anything other than a white blur.

The interior of the temple, today, was lined with pinball machines and arcade games, along with a gumball machine, several racks of candy, and a vat of green jello.

How odd! Fantasia reverted to the hybrid form, tail switching back and forth as she stepped over to take a look into the vat and giggled. She'd taken a considerable liking to this particular form since the Awakening years ago, how could she not enjoy a luxurious fur coat and the thumbs to go with it? She barely resisted the urge to stick a finger into the jello for a taste test, not wanting to leave a strand of fur in it.

"Well hello there foxy lady!" said a cheerful little voice behind her. One young elf boy with glowing silver-blue eyes was sitting atop one of the pinball machines.

Fantasia turned around, unable to resist striking a pose at the greeting. "Why yes, yes I am..." She grinned and dropped the posturing. "And who might you be, kiddo? I was looking for someone named Shazmar, have you seen him?"

He giggled gleefully and bounced off the machine and onto the floor in front of her. "I'm Shazmar." He offered her a lollipop. "It's fur-proof too."

Fantasia took the candy, then crouched down to his level and reached out to ruffle his hair. "Now how can that be? Who could be so cold and heartless as to mutter unkind things about such a cute kid?" She grinned and popped the sucker in her mouth, but remembering Mr. Owl crunched on it a bit.

Shazmar giggled and bounced a bit. "Well, I do do some annoying things sometimes. But I'm God, so I can get away with it. It's not like anyone's going to come and slice me to pieces for it since I'm not all evil like those Chaos Gods." He made a face.

"So you're not kidding me, then?" Fantasia huhed and shook her head, crunching a bit more. "So why all the hostility? I mean..." she looked around and gestured at the place, "Looks like you're just interested in having a bit of fun, at least that's what this place says to me. You don't look like the cranky type that people walk around on eggshells for."

Shazmar gave a shrug. "It's not like _I'm_ the one that goes and lays the smackdown on people who are being naughty. Not really. Even if that's also technically me. But never mind that, it's confusing to explain..."

Fantasia stood up, a final crunch sounding the death knell of the lollipop as she fished the stick out. "The way people were talking." She snorted lightly. "I expected you to be this hulking, shadowy, maniacal creature leaping out to smite others, not some..." She pointed the stick at him and grinned. "Cute little elf kid with a sense of play and humor."

Shazmar giggled. "Nah, they'd be less scared of me if I were! That's why I don't bother much, but when I need to I'll bring Kanraku out to lay the smackdown, like I had to with Zuna Taike not so long ago, crazy little elf..."

"So," Fantasia said, propping a hip against a pinball machine. "What is it, exactly, that people find so scary about you? Green jello? Ooooh scary!" She shivered in mock horror. "And lollipops? Oh save me!"

Shazmar giggled. "Some people don't have a sense of humor, you know?"

"Oh trust me," Fantasia smirked, rolling her eyes. "This is something I know. So tell me, what is it that a cute elf god does normally? Any commandments written in stone someplace that I should know about. Kinda new here still."

Shazmar shrugged. "Mainly I just run the universe and keep it from falling apart. Which is tough sometimes, what with people creating Wheels of Chaos and attempting to rip apart all reality and the like."

"Ugh." Fantasia stuck her tongue out. "What _is_ it with people wanting to destroy the universe, either just for the hell of it or in the hopes of remaking it in their own image? Taking themselves way too seriously, is what _that_ is. Tsk."

"Or just stupidity in some cases." He shrugged. "But hey. I don't see many people from your neck of the woods around here. That Interdimensional Bridge I put up getting some use, eh?"

"Uh, actually," Fantasia replied. "I'm not really sure how I ended up here, was just trailing along after someone and got sucked in when they did something. Next thing I know, POOF, I'm in downtown Torn Elkandu without a clue as to what that means. Figured some of it out since then, but..." She shrugged.

"Don't know how Shenzel got here back when either, but hey, I could find out if I bothered looking, but what fun would that be?"

Fantasia smirked. "It's not like I have any pressing need to head back that way anytime soon anyway, I've outlived most of the people I knew. That's what the tails are all about, or at least part of it." The additional tails in question sprout back out in a flurry of fur, swaying and curling lazily behind her. "Probably just going to look around a bit more after finishing what I came here for, then take a guided tour."

"If you see Shenzel over on Daresa, do remember to say hi for me," Shazmar said brightly.

"Ah-ha," Fantasia exclaimed, pointing the stick at him again. "Now I see the reason for you mentioning them in the first place, ya little stinker. But I suppose I can pass that along, that's part of what the Messengers did, after all." She chuckled and pushed away from the pinball machine, looking down at him. "You're lucky I have a strong will, or I'd stick you in a bag and keep you. Too cute."

Shazmar giggled. "Well, she was a friend of mine back when I made Daresa... She was a... whaddyacall em... Garou? Yeah..."

"Happen to know the tribe?" Fantasia asked. "I was raised by em, myself, so I still have a soft spot in my heart for em... even if I _did_ get a lot of ribbing about someone being really desperate one night." She snorted at the memory, then giggled.

Shazmar thought for a moment and said, "Children of Gaia, I think, if I remember right. She didn't really talk about it much, though."

"Could be good, could be bad," Fantasia mused. "Depends whether she was one of the old-school Wimps of Gaia or one of the newer ones who would actually _do_ something. Heh. Then again, who knows if she even came from the same universe? I've poked into that angle a bit and the concept of splitting timelines was enough to make my head spin."

"Well. It was also kind of five hundred years ago, too." Shazmar shrugged. "Not that that means overmuch, considering time travel and the temporal distortion field that was over Daresa for the longest time anyway."

"Wowch, that's a long time," Fantasia replied. "At least by my standards, longer than I've been alive and I outlived the people I grew up with. No telling then, I seem to remember dad saying that the Garou were quite a bit different when Gaia first created us."

"Well, at least five hundred years by Lezaria time... Who knows what it might be by that mirror of Earth's time... and it was several millennia by Daresan time. Bet she's glad being touched by Time Magic made her virtually immortal, heh."

Fantasia blinked, muzzle scrunching up as she thought about the separate times and the possible comparisons, then shook herself. "Ew," she said, "Okay, not going to do that again, don't want to lose the few brain cells that the wise guys said were all that remained. Ow." She grinned. "I'll definitely pass that along, and drop by with a reply when I head back this way. Pass up a lollipop or gumball? Never!"

Shazmar giggled. "Sure thing. Have fun!"

Fantasia looked at him for a moment, then walked forward and knelt to give him a hug. "Too cute!" she said brightly, drawing back and ruffling his hair, then standing, "I'll see you again soon, and maybe throw in a good word here and there just to keep people on their toes." She grinned and shifted back to the four-footed form, dipping her head to snag the lollipop stick in her mouth.

Shazmar waved and disappeared when she wasn't looking.

Fantasia was to the door before she notices he was gone, but stopped as she realized it and trotted back to hop up next to the vat of jello. Looking furtively this way and that, she stretched out to take a nibble from it, tongue darting to clean a smear from the tip of her nose. Curiosity sated, she retrieved the stick and darted out the door in a blur of white.


	4. Wolf-Kin Village

Time to move on, Fantasia mused to herself, whistling merrily as she packed the few things she had brought with her and the few trinkets she'd picked up along the way here. The last bit of business was taken care of, thanks to the help of the final item she careful strapped to her back and then concealed with illusion. Good thing to have around, she supposed, but it really wasn't her style...

Even if it did settle a few old scores and close out a cycle, she chuckled, checking the straps and then slinging a rucksack over her shoulder before taking a look around. She'd provided service and then some for the use of the tiny room above the bar, and she grinned at the memory of the 'and then some' before setting out. They'd just have to find someone else to liven up the show a bit, shouldn't be too hard.

Besides, the barkeep was starting to get exasperated because of the wife's nagging, Fantasia doubted that either one of them would be sad to see her vanish without a trace. Hehe, always amusing to leave just ahead of a collision. The way out of the bar was easily managed without anyone the wiser, and she headed off in the direction of the gardens she'd visited a week before, hoping the offer was still good.

Off laying in the garden underneath a large drenak tree was the black panther she had seen before, dozing away in the shadows of the garden underneath the eerie light of the Ethereal Plane and Torn Elkandu's "sun", or what passed for one at any rate.

Fantasia smirked, shaking her head as she ducks around a tree. Cats were all alike, whether big or small, even Kitty'd had her moments where the bright allure of the sunbeams had dragged her from more playful pursuits to an unscheduled nap. Silly felines. "Wakey wakey," she said on approach, not particularly wanting to surprise a creature that could seriously inhibit her traveling plans.

"Mrrrr?" said Thorn, lifting her head and blinking her green eyes open sleepily at Fantasia. "Oh, it's you again." She yawned broadly and stretched, showing long fangs and claws.

Now _that_ display was precisely the sort of thing that makes it a good idea not to startle cats, though Thorn definitely wasn't the biggest she'd seen there was still a considerable size and weight advantage there... not to mention they could climb trees!

Fantasia chuckled lightly and nodded. "Yup, just me, was hoping I'd find you still lazing around out here."

Thorn sat up on her haunches and looked over at her. "So, did you take care of what you were going to?"

"That little problem has been cut down to size," Fantasia replied, her grin holding a decidedly unpleasant edge and her eyes gleaming with malicious glee. "Sometimes you're the predator, sometimes the prey, but when it comes down to Ragabash all you can do _is_ pray." She snickered, the wicked amusement dimming in its intensity as she shrugged. "Anyway, yeah, so is that tour offer still open?"

"What's a Ragabash?" Thorn wondered, shaking her head a bit. "You use so many strange words I have to wonder if you aren't speaking another language and why the universal translator isn't catching it."

"Ragabash..." Fantasia responded, grinning as she stalked around the cat, "are the things that go bump in the night, but when you go and look there's nothing there... only to return to bed and find your covers missing. They're the ones that outfitted the Emperor in his new clothes... in short, they keep life interesting by making sure that people don't take themselves too seriously. Hehe."

"Well, okay then, if you say so." Thorn absently washed herself a bit. "So, did you want to head to Daresa then?"

"What, you think I'd head out into the 'dark and dreadful' to borrow a phrase," Fantasia replied. "And not have a reason for doing it? Please! If I wanted black and foreboding I'd hit a Goth club!" She chuckled, shifting the pack at her shoulder. "Besides, I got all dressed and packed up, have to have _somewhere_ to go."

Thorn chuckled softly and said, "Sure thing. The portal's off somewhere around this way..."

Thorn got up and loped off deeper into the trees, meandering among the garden paths and hopping over a small stream. After a bit of walking, they reached a shimmering glassy portal set inside a large tree, showing a forest of a slightly different composition on the other side.

Fantasia remained in the hybrid form, though the fleeter four feet of the fox would have kept up more readily and the things she carried wouldn't have been a problem since they were dedicated anyway. More a matter of preference, not really being in any great hurry and quite content to stretch her legs in a light jog to follow the cat. She stopped as they neared the portal, then approached to circle around and look at it.

"So this is your looking glass, Alice?" Fantasia asked, grinning lightly as she was sure the reference would be missed yet again but finding a bit of amusement in it for herself. "Just beware the Queen of Hearts," she added, tails flitting merrily in varied directions as she looked through. "Well, nothing for it but to do it. I'll just say no to the magic mushrooms, though." She moved to step through.

Thorn chuckled softly and shook her head in confusion and leapt through the portal in the tree. There was no sun or moon on Daresa, but the brightly colored stars made up for the lack, allowing a sort of perpetual twilight over the world. A dim forest stretched out around them, with the sounds of wildlife echoing through the dusky woods.

Fantasia looked around, admiring the natural beauty sure, but her roots being decidedly uncomfortable with the lack of any immediate signs of civilization. Glass Walkers and the kitsune alike were well-acquainted and comfortable with technology, and it hadn't even crossed her mind that they'd arrive in the middle of so much _nothing_.

"Uhhhh," she remarks unhelpfully, still looking around a bit.

Thorn, on the other hand, did not seem at all uneased, in fact she seemed to relax more as she stepped into the forests of her homeworld. She stretched and let out a contented mrrr sound. "Isn't it wonderful?"

"I suppose," Fantasia replied with a shrug, looking up at the bright starlit sky. "And there's something to be said about the sky above. Must be some of that time difference that Shazmar mentioned, since we left during the day and got here at night."

"Well, it _is_ another planet entirely," Thorn commented. "But it's always night on Daresa. There isn't a sun or a moon."

"No sun or moon?" Fantasia looked over at Thorn, ears perking with curiosity. "Okay, no moon I could see, I'm sure there's tons of planets out there without em, but no _sun_? How do any of the plants around here live? And what kind of... oh wait..." she trailed off with a smirk, "Shazmar said he'd made this place, that would explain a lot."

"I never really saw what the use is in in a sun, myself... but then I grew up here, so I suppose I'm biased."

"Well unless you're talking about fungus and things like that," Fantasia replied, stepping over to touch a tree. "There's a tendency to need little things like sunlight for photosynthesis, at least usually." She grinned and shrugged. "But imagine the fits it'd give to the ecologists trying to figure it out! Talk about a joke on a planetary scale!"

"Pho...to... synthesis? There you go with weird words I don't know again."

Fantasia giggled and walked over to stand nearby. "Don't worry about it, just one of those weird things that I picked up along the way in the school system. Don't go in for much science or formal education here, do they?"

"Certainly. There's a school in Torn Elkandu that trains in magical theory and use."

"Well sure, magic and Gifts are great and all," Fantasia replied. "But what about things like literature, history, science, and math? Any cub goes through _years_ of that stuff before they even get to the point where they can undertake their Rite of Passage."

"Oh, that's what mensch schools are for," Thorn said. She started loping off into the trees absently, ears flicking as she kept an eye and an ear on the place.

Fantasia gave the moving feline an odd look, then smirked and set off after her. "So anyway, no sun or moon," she shifted topics back toward the original curiosity. "Forget about the plants and other stuff, what about little things like deciding what time it is and what part of the 'day' to head off to bed? Or Elevensies?"

"The star cycles, clearly. Or whenever people feel like it. But 'days' and months and years are determined off the cycles of the stars. See that bright blue one overhead? it may not really be a 'sun', but when it rises and sets is considered a 'day'."

"That makes sense," Fantasia admitted, though snickering quietly at the oddity of the situation... not to mention all the potential _fun_ that could be had in a world that was forever covered in the dark of night. That thought snapped at memory, and she glanced over. "No leeches around here by chance, are there? Well okay, you'd probably call them vampires or something equally bloodsucking nightmarish."

"Leeches? Oh, vampires? Eh, I don't hear much about them around here... the werewolves keep them away. Most of 'em hand out on Mezulbryst."

"Heh no, they've never gotten along particularly well," Fantasia agreed. "Even when there's a cease-fire in place. Must be something about the nature of the beasts... that or leeches are just disgusting, self-important scumbags that are better put out of their misery than left wandering out of their cages." She shrugged with deliberately innocent uncertainty. "Iunno."

"Speaking of which, I do believe we're in werewolf territory here," Thorn commented, ears flicking about.

"Not necessarily a bad thing," Fantasia replied, though watching the woods they were passing through a bit more carefully. "Not necessarily a good thing either, depending on how territorial they are, and how willing to rip any wayward foxes into tiny little bits too small to even be used as pillow stuffing."

As if on cue, they spotted one wolf watching them from beyond some light foliage. But it was no sooner noticed than it ran off into the trees again.

"Welllll," Fantasia muttered, watching in that direction as they passed and nearly slamming into a tree for her distraction, only catching herself against it at the last moment and continuing around. "That could be good or bad, too. How much ya wanna bet that the furball headed off to tell somebody who'll tell someone else, and so on, until either someone decides we're not interesting or they decide to chase us up a tree?"

"Can foxes even climb trees?" Thorn wondered. "Sides, I'm sure they'll remember me. I hope."

"Hehe," Fantasia replied. "You'd be surprised what this fox can do when there's hounds at her heels. Besides, that's what thumbs are for." She wiggled her fingers in demonstration, then sped to catch up to Thorn as a thought crossed her mind. "They know you?"

"Well... they should at any rate, I've certainly been by here enough times."

"Ohhhhh," Fantasia nodded sagely. "You just scramble on through their designated territory and this shows that they'll remember and leave you alone. I see." She smirked, ears flicking in amusement. "Let's pick up the pace, I don't mind taking chances but I at least prefer ones that I have some kind of rabbit hole to run to."

"That wasn't _quite_ what I meant," Thorn commented. "I meant... ah, hell with it, there's a village up ahead I think..."

Fantasia grinned and glanced aside to the feline, recognizing the faint hint of exasperation all too well from years of causing just that sort of thing in people around her. It just kinda came with the territory.

"Sounds good to me," Fantasia offered aloud, tongue flicking to wet her nose. "Maybe someone there will have an idea where Shenzel went." Having a long memory made things a lot easier, let you think best when to duck for cover.

As they broke out of the trees and saw the village ahead, it appeared positively medieval. Rough wooden huts gathered around a pool where a stream decided to pause for a moment before continuing on to the ocean. This place appeared to be inhabited by humans.

"How quaint," Fantasia remarked, not really disparaging as she could see the appeal of living out in the boondocks even if it wasn't her preference, and at least they'd chosen a pretty spot to set the village down in. "The natives around here friendly," she asked, grinning lightly, "Or do we get to play fox in the henhouse?"

"Should be," Thorn said. The humans didn't seem to much be overly concerned about their presence, regardless.

Fantasia stuck her tongue out. "Well that's no fun." Snickering lightly, she looked around and observed the people in question, seemed peaceful enough, if a bit overly quiet and dull. "So is the rest of the world like this, or are there real cities lurking about someplace? Bright lights, Broadway shows, skyscrapers..."

"Yeah, I told you about Fesirya Kren didn't I? Millions of people live there."

"Mmm, don't think so," Fantasia responded, tilting her head in thought, then shrugged. "Only makes sense that there'd be someplace like that around here. People have the urge to gather together and escape the wide open spaces."

Thorn casually shifted into wood elf form again, stretched a bit, and headed into the village. "I don't really know where Shenzel got off to myself. I haven't seen her in ages."

Fantasia shrugged, incidentally resettling the pack at her shoulder and the fit of other straps. "No biggie, that's largely a sideline anyway, a point of curiosity since Shazmar said she'd come from the same world I did originally and he asked me to pass along a message."

"He's Shazmar," Thorn replied. "A casual side comment from Shazmar generally means a good deal more than it appears to at first."

"Just like any good Ragabash." Fantasia grinned and nodded. "And he's just so cute!" She giggled, remembering the Look she'd gotten from her former 'employer' upon her telling him where she'd been. "Nothing wrong with a little subtlety," she added. "Beats hell out of being a cranky old thing like Gaia was turning into at one point. Eesh."

A couple young children came to stare at them with great curiosity for a long moment until their mother showed up and shuffled them off again.

"Better watch out," Fantasia remarked offhandedly to Thorn. "I hear them strangers is an awfully scary lot. One of em has pointy ears, and the other'un has fur and tails! Tsk, tsk, wot's this world comin' to?" She grinned, shrugged, and continued onward, not really bothered by that reaction.

Thorn chuckled and headed further into the village. There was an elderly man sitting on a bench beside the well smoking a pipe. "Well, look what the cat dragged in," he said. "If'n my old eyes don't deceive me, I'd think it was Thorn, come back after all these years!"

"Seems someone remembers you at least," Fantasia offered, a faint grin serving the purpose of adding a hint of the facetious to it. She toyed with the idea of smiling brightly and waving cheerfully to the old man, but refrained from doing so... for now anyway.

He looked over to Fantasia and poked his pipe in her direction, "And what's this fair and lovely... fox... that you've brought with you, eh?"

"Kitsune, actually, and the name's Fantasia," emerged the inevitable reply, the bright smile and wave emerging despite the earlier moment of restraint. "Just poking about a bit with Thorn as my guide, looks like this place is a little quiet for me though."

"Heh! You should see it when our cousins decide to come down for a jig, oh things can get awfully wild around here lemme tell you that."

Fantasia's ears perked noticeably at that, "Your cousins?"

He looked at her oddly for a moment. "Oh, certainly. You know, the werewolves?"

"Oh reeeeally now?" Fantasia replied, grinning broadly at that. "And how often do they come down from the mountain to have a good old-fashioned throw-down?"

Wouldn't be quite the same as the kinds of parties the Glass Walkers threw, probably more like a typical moot, but even those were entertaining enough if you put your mind to it.

"Whenever they feel like, generally, although they tend to show up fairly regularly every Starsdawn." He shrugged.

"Starsdawn?" Fantasia asked, looking from the old man to Thorn and back. "Not familiar with that one, I'm used to the idea of having a sun and moon around to slice the passage of time up into nice, orderly little segments."

"Sun? Moon? Feh, what do you need them for? The stars are more than enough for me."

Fantasia grinned. "When you're on the run as much as I tend to be, it's a lot easier to keep track of something nice and big rather than having to stop and..." She straightened, mimicking a pipe in one hand, the other cupped beneath her elbow as she looked at the sky and pointed the imagined pipe-stem at it. "I say, by George, that might be the one I'm thinking of, or was it the slightly-bluer one over that way?"

He looked at her as if she was mad.

Not missing the look, Fantasia stuck the imaginary pipe between her teeth and took a puff, sucking in a breath and then letting it out. "What's that? Crazy you say? Well stuff and nonsense! I'm sure it was the only slightly more blue one over that way..." She ruined the act by giggling at his dismayed goggle.

"The Blue Star Shazmar is an unmistakable mark in the Daresan sky, dear Kitsune," the old man said, putting the pipe back in his mouth.

"Oh, oh I see," Fantasia replied, nodding in clear and sudden understanding. "Shazmar's star, _that_ blue one, gotcha." She smirked and rolled her eyes. "Anyway, thanks for the astronomy lesson, old-timer, much appreciated."

"I don't see how you could miss it," he said. "It's twice as bright as any other star in the sky."

"Oh for love of the Machine," Fantasia muttered and snorted. "Okay, so it's brighter than any other star, that doesn't mean it's exactly clear as day when you're looking to orient yourself by it, especially when you're not from around these here parts."

"I'm sure if you spent any amount of time around here, though, you'd not have much trouble by it. The sky is painted with constellations any Daresan native can read quite easily."

Fantasia grinned and shrugged. "All depends whether you plan on sticking around a place long enough to keep track of those little details. Personally, I'd rather have a nice little GPS wired into a cell phone for convenience sake."

"Gee... pee... ess?" the man said slowly. "Hmph. Well, I'm sure if you stick'n by Thorn here, she won't steer you wrong."

"That's what a tour guide is for," Fantasia replied brightly, sighing inwardly at all the nifty toys that were gone and out of reach now... though that also meant that she wouldn't have to suffer through the most recent season of the Survivor series, so she supposed it balances out in the end. "Speaking of, better be on our way, sights to see, gotta get the best value out of ticket price. Byeee!" She grinned, nodded, and started to walk off.

"Before we go," Thorn said, "Would you happen to have heard anything about Shenzel lately?"

The man said, "Nope, can't say that I have, sorry. Good luck on your trip."

"Few bricks short of a wall," Fantasia could be heard muttering as she walked away. "Few cans short of a six-pack, light-bulb short of a full string..." she trailed off into inaudibility, though clearly still muttering to herself. Crazy people, crazy place, probably suit her just fine.

Thorn smirked faintly and hopped away, and turned back into a panther again on the edge of the village. "So, did you want to see Fesirya Kren, then? It's a bit of a ways from here, but ..."

Fantasia giggled, holding in any further signs of mirth like rolling around on the ground in uncontrolled laughter to preserve the state of her fur. "Sure," she replied. "Gotta be better than hanging out on a porch in a rocking chair, shotgun across my lap, and peering out suspiciously at all the strange folk walkin' by." She snickers, then shrugs, "Sorry, the backwoods just... aren't me."

Thorn chuckled and said, "Well, hope you're up for a bit of a hike then. But don't worry, I'll maul anything that tries to eat you," she winked.

Thorn loped off into the trees, heading toward the northwest. Not that it was especially easy to tell it was northwest.

"I'd say I was hoping you're joking," Fantasia smirked. "But I have a sneaking suspicion that you're not. Don't worry about it, though, I'm used to running from anything bigger, meaner, and nastier than I am, and when you're a kitsune that means just about every shapeshifter out there!"

She trotted easily along after Thorn, the extra agility of the werefox far preferable in her mind to any extra bit of size any day.

Thorn headed off into the trees. As they left the village behind, a couple more wolves could be seen lurking in the trees, watching them occasionally, but so long as they seemed to be moving out of their territory, they didn't appear to care to bother them overmuch at the moment.

Fantasia couldn't resist waving cheerfully to the wolves in passing, the idea of werewolves not really all that frightening to her since she'd grown up around them and thought she _was_ one for a good part of her life.


	5. Too Many Pop Culture References

"Soooo..." Fantasia said idly as they traveled along. "Rather than breaking into an endless round of a million bottles of beer on the wall, why don't you tell me a bit about this city? Keep me from thinking about the things lurking in the shadows and waiting to leap out with dripping jaws and sharp, rending claws... y'know, lawyers and the like. Scary stuff."

Thorn snickered softly. "Well, there's ten towers that shiny silvery in the light of the stars, but they aren't actually _made_ of silver since that's far too delicate to use in such a large construction. In the center tower at the top there's a defunct Nexus. It doesn't work anymore since Daresa isn't in the Ethereal Plane anymore and is actually now in the physical plane."

Glancing over at the cat, Fantasia quirked an eye ridge. "I'd hope they wouldn't be making towers out of silver on a planet full of shapeshifters, or doesn't that problem apply here? Well, not that it's any big deal to kitsune either, or a couple of the other Bete, but silver's still pretty high on the list of nastiness all told."

"It's just _called_ Silver Towers. They aren't actually silver. They're just shiny," Thorn insisted. "Apparently, a Nexus needs to be in the Ethereal Plane to work. Something about it can't get sufficient energy in the physical plane or something... I don't know."

Fantasia giggled. "Sorry, kind of got on a tangent there, it just got brought to mind by the mention of the towers. More a matter of morbid curiosity than anything else, really, so nothing of import." She fell silent, thinking over the rest of that. "So, originally it was intended to be some kind of Nexus like back at Torn Elkandu?"

"Yup. Originally it worked, too. Daresa used to be a world inside the Ethereal Plane. But now it's not. It got knocked out into the physical plane during the Planar Wars."

"Do any of the 'shifters around here step sideways?" Fantasia asked. "Haven't decided whether to try it or not since ending up outside of where I used to live, not sure just how that might work here or where I could end up..." She grinned. "I may be a bit reckless and find myself in trouble now and again, but it's not necessarily something I look for. Often."

"I'm not fully certain just what you mean by that," Thorn replied. "I'm just going to assume you don't mean literally."

"Ummm," Fantasia scratched thoughtfully under her chin. "Well, back where I came from, the shapeshifters could cross over from the 'real world' over to the side where spirits hung out. The nearest bits were more like a reflection of the physical world, but you could travel further and deeper inward to find stranger and stranger things like pocket realms. Never had the inclination to go as far as the Deep Umbra, myself."

"Right. You're talking about the Ethereal Plane," Thorn said. "Yeah, people can do that here. Not everyone, not just shapeshifters, and not every shapeshifter, really. I can't, or at least I don't think I can, I never really tried."

"I'll have to try it out sometime, then," Fantasia replied. "Though preferably when I don't have to keep an ear and eye out for hints of things sneaking through the trees in search of a late-night snack. Speaking of..." She dragged the pack off her shoulder and rummaged around, dragging out a couple candy bars she'd had stowed away for a while now. "Errr, want one? I can unwrap it if you want to keep moving. Heh." Thumbs, love em.

"Oh, sure, sounds good," Thorn said. "Bah, I never got the hang of a half-and-half form either. It's just either panther or elf."

Fantasia tucked one in a side pocket of the pack, unwrapping the Hershey bar as they ambled along and offering the unwrapped treat to Thorn. "Here ya go. Never leave home without an emergency sugar supply, or in your case I suppose a set of emergency plants." She snickered.

Thorn grabbed it in her mouth carefully and gnawed on it. "Mmm."

Unwrapping the other, Fantasia nibbled thoughtfully at a corner, slipping the pack back over her shoulder with a shrug. She waited for her companion to clearly be done with chewing, polite enough when it comes to sugar consumption at least, then said, "Don't know how you do it, I'd be lost out here in, oh, ten minutes tops. Didn't bother me much back home, but then there were techno gadgets to help the non-woodsy types out."

"Mmmh," Thorn said. "Nah, I grew up in these woods. I know them like the back of my paw. When you spend a few hundred years in a place, you tend to get to know it pretty well."

"That makes sense," Fantasia replied. "Couple hundred years, huh? So what's it feel like to be such an old-timer? Asked that of my dad once, he has an even crueler sense of humor than I do. I had _no_ idea you could do that with a rubber chicken!"

"I'm not an old-timer," Thorn replied. "I'm barely an adult, in the prime of my life, by elvish standards."

Fantasia grinned. "Sure ya are, at least by my standards, I'm not even _half_ that. The eight tails'll keep me going for a while longer, though." She chuckled, the tails in question fluffing themselves out, though closer examination would reveal the count was short by one. "The elves apparently live forever even back home, but only the nine tails get the same perks. Dad and Bai Mianxi are still running around, almost a millennium later!"

"Well, I don't know how long elves are supposed to live, I can't say I've really been around them much, honestly. They generally get killed sooner or later by orcs or accidents or humnas or one damned thing or another, anyway."

"Yup, that's a pretty common theme," Fantasia replied. "If it's not somebody wanting your ears to dangle from their belt, it's some guy running around with a katana screaming 'THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!' and trying to lop off your head. That kind of thing kinda puts a damper on the whole extended life plan. Heh."

"And Elkandu, well, they tend to take living practically forever for granted. I don't know what it is about them. Some of them have been around for ten thousand years..."

"Now that's a standard to aspire to!" Fantasia grinned. "Imagine all the fun you could have in that long a life, all the things to see and poke your muzzle into!"

"Oh... I'm sure they have plenty of fun, I guess, but you wouldn't say that Harmony is the most sane creature in the universe..."

As if on cue, predictably, one tentacle monster with antlers, butterfly wings, and twelve eyes appeared in their path.

Fantasia's eyes went wide at the creature's sudden appearance and she let out a startled yip! That was followed immediately thereafter as she disappeared in a blur of white and leapt into the nearest tree with a branch within reach. She perched on the branch and looked down, blinking at the creature.

The creature didn't even have the common courtesy to stay in one form, constantly shifting, dissolving body parts and other body parts appearing. Harmony giggled at the reaction. "Whee! I love getting that sort of reaction. Hiya!"

Thorn didn't appear surprised at all, just kind of rolling her eyes and sitting down on her haunches.

"Thorn... what is it?" Fantasia asked in a small voice, the thing reminding her entirely too much of some bizarre cross between a Wyldling and some Wyrm varmint. Thorn didn't seem upset about it, though, which was more reassuring than puzzling.

"That's Harmony Kimchild. One of the oldest known living Elkandu," Thorn said.

Harmony said, "Technically third oldest, I think. Swamp and Amanda are older than me by a couple years. But they're such party-poopers. No fun at all!"

"Uh-huh," Fantasia replied, her eyes still staring at the bizarre thing. "We're not near Torn Elkandu anymore though, right? So what's it doing here?"

"I'm a _she_ thank you very much. Well, not that that's very easy to tell," Harmony said.

Thorn smirked a bit and said, "Elkandu don't just live in Torn Elkandu. That's just their main city. They can generally go wherever they damned well please."

"Uh-huh," Fantasia replied yet again, not appearing inclined to leave her nice safe perch just at the moment. "And why would it... she, I guess, suddenly decide to come out here and chase me up a tree? And for that matter..." She shuddered. "What's wrong with it... her... whatever?"

Harmony said, "My cousin Swamp enchanted me so that whenever someone says my name, I can instantly teleport to their current location if I want to. And what do you mean what's wrong with me?"

Fantasia just blinked once, looking at Harmony and wondering what part of that didn't make perfect sense. "Ummm, nothing," she said, rather unconvincingly, "Just a little joke, y'know, ha ha..." her voice lowered as she muttered, "Wise guys always said I didn't know when to keep my muzzle shut."

"I am Harmony Kimchild, Master Changer! I am the greatest Changer who ever lived! Would you like antlers? I hear antlers are very popular these days. Antlers?"

Harmony spun around and proceeded to turn into a humanoid fox with pink fur, entirely too many tails (like thirty or so), and antlers.

"Uhhh..." Fantasia began, then giggled at the silliness of the change despite herself. "Umm, no antlers for me, thanks, and I've got tails enough of my own. Nice dye job, though. Heh."

Harmony wiggled some tails at her and giggled some more. "Or maybe wings? Wings are fun!" She sprouted brightly colored butterfly wings with a distinctive marking of a smiley face.

"Ohhh, wings..." Fantasia mentally drooled a bit at the prospect, actually leaning forward on her perch, then thought about it, and smirked. "Sorry, no idea what any changes would do when I shapeshifted. I'd really hate to be stuck one way or another, there's so many interesting advantages to the different forms."

Fantasia shrugged inwardly and swung down from the branch, landing with a soft 'oof' as it was a little further than remembered.

"Oh, well, I suppose my powers don't work too very well on natural shapeshifters, since they can change themselves anyway," Harmony said, disappointed. "You'd have to talk to Sardill about extending your abilities though if you really wanna be better! But power is never without a price... Tata. I'm off to scare a six year old boy. Or more likely, his mother." She vanished again.

"Too bad," Fantasia said when Harmony was gone, grinning over at Thorn. "Always did wish I could fly, and to have fluffy feathered wings to go along with the fur?" She murred at the hedonistic thought and shivered. "Yum. Anyway..." she shrugged. "With the weirdness out of the way. Heh."

"Just as well," Thorn said, standing and starting to walk again. "Sardill/Swamp is not someone I care to deal with. I've heard way too many nightmares about him. I can't imagine you spent any time in Torn Elkandu without hearing any of them, either."

Fantasia set back out after Thorn with a shrug. "Yeah, I heard something about this Sardill character, but really didn't impress me any more than making a deal with a devil of any flavor. Not smart. Better to stay away from them overall, and try to keep off their radar... unless you come up with a really delicious idea for a joke that you just can't pass up."

"He might give you whatever you wanted, for a price... or he might curse you for eternity..."

"Hey, if you can't get by on what Gaia gave ya," Fantasia replied with a grin. "Then what's the point of trying to get something more from a less-than-trustworthy source? That's like trusting your spam, or buying anything from a telemarketer!"

"Who's Gaia?" Thorn wondered, loping along past some bushes that looked a bit like blackberry bushes although a bit more red-purpley than blackberries.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Fantasia called out, skidding to a halt near the bushes and looking at them. "Are these safe to eat? Foxes and grapes image didn't come from nowhere, y'know. Heh."

She hadn't really encountered all that many of her own kind, but the few that she had all _did_ like berries, maybe it was a fanciful psychological identification with the old story... or maybe they just liked the taste.

"What? Oh, those are worfberries. Quite tasty, really. You don't have worfberries back on Terra? They're all over Daresa, Lezaria, Wilderplane, etc."

"Hehe, nope, they just looked suddenly appealing," Fantasia replied, and went about picking some of them, one for later and one for now, two for later and one, two for now, etc. "Mm, right, Gaia... besides being cranky, _very_ cranky, at least until the last couple years as things changed a bit, she's... hmm."

She shook her head, thinking about it as she picked some more and dropped them into a pocket of her pack.

"Guess you'd call her the spirit of the world," she continued after a moment. "Or at least that's how she's associated, just like her sister Luna is the moon and their brother Helios the sun. Lots of weird cosmology running around out there, but it's real as can be since you can go up and say 'hi' any time you want to... if you're brave and or stupid enough."

Thorn peered at her looking very, very confused. "So, what, these are gods or something?"

"Depends on who you ask," Fantasia replied, grinning over her shoulder as she looked back at Thorn. "If they're not, though, they're definitely the biggest and baddest things out on the block in that neck of the woods. Really powerful spirits, or gods? Take your pick, not much difference either way as you still end up some serious roadkill if you step in front of the galactic bus. Gaia's the one who set the Weaver, Wyld, and Wyrm in motion, so she'd probably be the top on the totem pole." She giggled at that for some reason, not immediately clear.

"Er, okay then. And what might the 'Weaver, Wyld, and Wyrm' be, then?"

"They're..." Fantasia replied, dragging the word out as she picked another handful to munch along the way before standing. "I guess you'd call them primordial forces or something along those lines." She popped a berry in her mouth and munched happily on it, gesturing to the direction they'd been following. "There's more to it than that, but it'd probably bore you to tears."

"I'm already very confused," Thorn replied. "So are these things something like Shazmar then, or what?"

"Nope, nothing like that," Fantasia explained. "That'd be more like Gaia. No, the Triat are more like... hmm, the workings of the machine. The Wyld creates stuff, the Weaver gives it form and function, and the Wyrm causes it to decay. Set into motion by Gaia who knows how long ago, I guess you'd look at them more as factions; a bunch of different spirits affiliated with each of em to further their goals. It was a real mess for a while, as the Wyrm apparently went nuts after the Weaver imprisoned it..." She shook her head. "Don't ask me, there's some really funky metaphysical stuff that went along with that, but things were smoothing out a bit when I left since the shapeshifters were starting to do what Gaia had created them for in the first place. Balance, definitely an odd concept."

"That's... really weird. So like, what, the angels, demons, and such then? I'm awfully confused."

"Angels and demons?" Fantasia looked aside at Thorn, grinning. "Nah, according to some of the Garou there's no such thing there, all the religions since time began nothing but a figment of things they've tried to do to shepherd the silly humans into following Gaia, go fig. Far as anyone knows, things like that are just manifestations of human dreaming that imprint themselves on the Umbra and make themselves real. Some really, _really_ nasty stuff can come out of that. And don't get me started on some of the Weaver spirits, imagine a spider the size of a Volkswagon." She shuddered.

"Well, there's definitely angels and demons _here_." Thorn snorted softly. "I guess things work differently in that universe or something..."

"Oh yeah, definitely," Fantasia agreed with a fervent nod. "It wasn't until fairly recently that the shapeshifters, vampires, mages, fae, and every other weird thing in the world came out of hiding. While magic here seems to be as commonplace as the air we're breathing, things are a lot more low-key there. Has its good and bad points, I s'pose."

"Well, mana levels are different on different worlds... They said it had something to do with the different strength of the 'veil' whatever that is, on various worlds. They say powerful magic is only possible because the veil is weak around the prime Elkandu worlds."

Fantasia chuckled. "The Veil had a different meaning back there, but it sounds like it means roughly the same as the Gauntlet... the barrier between the physical and spirit worlds. Magic _is_ possible there, and the various supernatural critters use it all the time, it was just something that they kept hidden as well as possible to avoid the inevitable witch burnings and bounty hunts that came after the Veil was blown away."

"Yeah... The 'veil' is what the Elkandu call the barrier between the physical and ethereal planes. And it's possible to do more magic in the ethereal plane than it is in the physical... creating entire worlds with a thought, they say..."

"Yup, same idea then, and some people have done some mighty strange things in the Umbra," Fantasia replied. "Course some of the more powerful caerns had such a thin barrier between the two that it was about the same on either side. That's apparently why the mages wanted them so badly and why the shapeshifters got all annoyed about the mages draining them dry. That magic's a big part of being a shapeshifter of any breed. Some really interesting things can be done with it, creating some nifty fetishes with incredible effects or just weapons that are ever so useful for slicing up someone who was better off dead." She smirked.

"You know, whenever I hear you say the word 'fetish', I have to keep reminding myself that you probably mean magic items and not sexual kinks."

Fantasia stifled a laugh, but the mirth couldn't be entirely contained and escaped as a giggle. "Right, not talking about those even if they exist and I have a few. In terms of what I mean, though..."

She stopped, thinking for a second, then shrugged and dropped the simple illusion hiding the scabbard at her back. She wriggled a bit, slithering out of the harness, and crossed to kneel nearby.

"This is an example," she said softly, drawing the long blade from the sheathe.

It was unusual for what it was, the sword roughly based on a hand-and-a-half design and bearing none of the usual glyphs or bizarre form of its type. The blade itself shimmered with faint light, as though a glimmer of the moon, though shadows dance and play alongside it.

"This belonged to a friend, who got it from a friend of hers years ago. The story behind it is pretty strange, and not really relevant, but it's really, _really_ old and has a number of different spirits bound into it."

Thorn looked it over and gave a nod. "Ah, I see. Yes. But what do you mean about 'draining things dry'? The Ethereal Plane is infinite, that'd be like drinking up the ocean."

Fantasia slipped the weapon back into its sheathe with quiet reverence for the spirits within, then rose and resettled the harness and the illusion surrounding it.

"The caerns are places of power that connect the Ethereal to the physical world, and draining enough power from them without giving anything back shuts that gate. Doesn't really do anything to the other side, but creating those places is a dangerous task."

Thorn thought for a moment. "You mean like the magic gemstones some of the Elkandu use? They say if you draw too much mana through them too fast it can burn them out..."

"Could be," Fantasia replied, returning to walking. "Sounds about the same really, though on a different scale. The caerns are home to shapeshifters, who feed gnosis... ummm, hmm, spiritual energy? Well anyway, they take and give this power to the caern itself, and the totem spirits watch over the whole thing. Some mages didn't seem to be bothered by the idea of destroying them for power."

"Mana. We call it 'mana'. But I imagine we're talking about the same thing. And generally, for all the faults the Elkandu might have, they don't make it a habit of destroying things just because they can. Intentionally. Although they did just about destroy the universe once or twice, but never mind..."

"Oh, I never said people overall weren't crazy," Fantasia replied, absently munching on another berry. "Just that the ones back there went about it in different ways and for different reasons. Each of the shapeshifting breeds, for example, was supposed to be a manifestation of some part of Gaia's will, giving them a purpose that they could follow as they went about life. Things never do go quite as simply as all that, though, and we kitsune were added into the mix maybe nine hundred or so years ago when She was feeling particularly cranky about the kids ignoring their jobs. Guess it never pays to draw the attention of the gods when they're in foul moods, even if getting to be Her laughter is a pretty neat occupation overall."

"Definitely sounds like Shazmar," Thorn commented. "But when he adds random things, he likes to pretend they were there all along. He calls it a 'retcon'. Whatever that means."

Fantasia groaned. "Retcon? Oh geez, that's bad, no wonder people cringe whenever he starts playing jokes!" She grinned, dispelling the momentary impression of horror. "Retroactive Continuity, it's a concept anyone who's watched any television series could tell ya all about. Poof! Something new is added, but wait! It was really that way _all along_ but they never mentioned it. Heh."

"Yeah, more or less," Thorn said. "And sometimes he's more blatant with his randomness. Like the Temporal Convergence and the Interdimensional Bridge."

"Well, not so much that they never mentioned it," Fantasia muttered, correcting herself. "As it's suddenly that way regardless of how things were before. Anyway! Heh. Shazmar's silly, he reminds me of the Monkey King."

"Monkey King? Well, I don't suppose calling him a 'monkey' would be fully inaccurate, all things considered. But yeah. Temporal Convergence was just strange... eight timelines randomly came together... and a bunch of duplicates of people appeared. Since most Elkandu couldn't seem to get along with themselves, there was a lot of killing of alternates going on."

"Oh, now that would be _fun_!" Fantasia exclaimed, grinning broadly. "I'd be tempted to see about setting up a contest with any alternates to see who could pull the biggest prank and get away alive with it. Marathon joke-fest, elimination style. Hehe."

"And in the end, apparently, the eight worlds got merged and the surviving copies got merged into one another. And any survivors from alternate timelines continued to exist. And bits and pieces of the worlds themselves ended up being from different timelines. Me, I'm not apparently from 'Linear-Alpha', so the 'real' timeline is called... but I don't know what happened to the me from here."

"Oh yes, I like him," Fantasia grinned. "Not only a weird sense of humor but cute as a button to boot. So, does everyone have alternates of themselves in the various timelines or something?" The interest in the question sounds unhealthily non-rhetorical, evidenced by a glitter of mischief in dark eyes.

"Supposedly there's an infinite number of possible timelines that are what would have happened if something slightly different had taken place... but it requires time travel to get to them. And time travel is confusing. Very confusing."

Little foxes danced playfully behind the mirror of Fantasia's eyes, turning on a calliope that whistled a merry tune as it got shuffled away for later thought. Lots of entertainment potential there, if she could figure out how to use it. Hee.

"Sounds like it," Fantasia replied innocently. "Probably something to avoid unless you want to run across Morlocks and Eloi, or maybe end up getting eaten by a grue."

"Er, whats?" Thorn wondered in confusion.

They passed out of the drenak forests and into a grove of tall, thin trees with green squarish fruits growing from them.

Fantasia giggled, taking a moment to tuck in her wayward tails before replying. "Some more pop culture references, sorry. Morlocks and Eloi were from a book and movie called the Time Machine, dealt with time traveling into the future. And a grue..." She looked around suddenly, her movements taking on a furtive and wary aspect, and she continued in a whisper, "Best not to talk about them much, especially not here. Grues live in dark places, all bright eyes and glittering teeth, waiting to leap out and eat the unwary and unfortunate soul passing by. Horrible stuff! The only warning you _might_ get is if one's eating nearby and you hear it crunching on someone else's bones."

"If you say so..." Thorn said. "At the rate you're going, I may as well start rambling about all sorts of things you have no idea what I'm talking about. I don't imagine there were teppers there? Or drow, or nali, or centaurs, or..."

Fantasia grinned and held up a hand. "Okay, okay, I'll try and stop, honest. I remember drow and centaurs from various roleplaying and video games, though, and I'd be willing to bet the last of my sugar stash that the nali have something to do with cats. Really though, I'm sorry, I've been just a horrible, terrible person to my guide and I throw myself on your mercy to beg forgiveness."

Thorn giggled. "Yeah, you're right about that. The nali are basically humanoid white tigers. Not shifters, although they do have an innate dreamwalking ability. That is, I think, more or less what you were calling 'stepping sideways'."

"Whew, saved by a cat's whisker," Fantasia replied, passing a hand across her forehead. "Don't know what I would have done if I'd had to hand over the last of the candy I have stored away... come to think of it, I'd probably go back and raid Shazmar's place for more. Never get between a fox and her sugar. Ever." She grinned. "At least it sounds like I might still be able to do that, though still not sure if I'm willing to try it just yet."

"And the teppers, well, they look like humans except they have completely white eyes, and they have telepathic powers that they can only use if they're actually touching a person. There aren't many f those on Daresa though."

"Oh, telepaths," Fantasia replied. "Stories about those all over the place back home, though I think most of it can really be attributed to various Gifts that the various shapeshifters have, or some of the abilities of the leeches. Other than that, you see a lot of it in various schlock-fi movies and television shows."

"There's telepaths that don't have those restrictions, although teppers have the ability innately and tend to be stronger telepaths when touching."

"Considering some of the stories I heard about the Elkandu," Fantasia said. "Wouldn't surprise me in the least to see something like that available to them. Whether that was a good thing or not would depend on who you were asking and the general opinion regarding the Elkandu in question. Some of them seemed to be at least fairly well-liked."

"Yeah, not _every_ Elkandu is an insane megalomaniac asshole," Thorn said. "Most of them aren't even actually very good mages. But they don't generally call pyromancers who can barely light a pipe to be 'true' Elkandu. They call them 'mibis' and such."

Fantasia shrugged. "To each their own, I guess, the idea of being superior to someone else is so common that it's barely worth commenting on. Besides, the world is simply ignorant of the fact that the foxes are superior and are too mired in their ignorance to feel jealous of it. Poor, misguided creatures." She sniffed disdainfully, then snickered.

Thorn chuckled. "The Elkandu have this saying. Mensch fear pyromancers. Pyromancers fear necromancers. Necromancers fear telepaths. Telepaths fear Catalysts. Catalysts fear Chronomancers. Chronomancers fear Shazmar."

"That's because you can never really be sure what a trickster is going to do," Fantasia smirked. "Pfah! I don't care what they say about him, I like the little guy. Okay, so he rearranges the universe now and then, who doesn't redecorate a bit when they're bored? Tsk."

"Heh. At least he stopped randomly adding 'ascensions' that nobody could actually figure out. I think he must have retconned some of them out of existence again. From what I hear, the last one he added was 'couatls'. Which were supposed to be telepathic bird-things, or something."

"He created couatls? Neat!" Fantasia replied, "Dragons with feathered wings, the pictures they had of them from Shado..." she broke off midword, whistling innocently, then continued, "errr, a roleplaying game were really pretty. Their wings were rainbow colored."

"Right... I never actually saw one myself, I'm not too sure if they actually even existed or not, but the folks in the school insisted they did and there were a couple around."

"There were some around after the Awak... things changed," Fantasia replied, breaking off again and trying to remember to be less specific. "Seeing dragons roaming around was just really neat, even if they did cause all sorts of problems. I mean, who's gonna tell a hundred foot fire-breathing lizard that its mountain top home now belongs to some drugged-out folk singer? Not me!"

"There's dragons in Lezaria too... not so many on Daresa though, but a few... I guess Daresa just isn't big enough for them. Ah, here we are, we're almost to the coast," Thorn said, lifting her nose to smell the salty breeze coming in off the water in the distance.

"Sure you're not part bloodhound?" Fantasia asked lightly, grinning, only now detecting the faint tang of salt to the air. "So where's this thriving center of civilization you promised? Don't make me ask for a refund..."

She scowled with all the ferocious might that a five foot or so tall hybrid fox can muster, which wasn't saying all that much, then ruined it entirely as she giggled uncontrollably.

"It's close. It's just across the channel," Thorn said. "We should be able to see the towers once we get out of the trees."

Sure enough, once they left the shadow of the trees and crest a hill, they saw ahead the ocean, and on an island not far off from the water, the city of Fesirya Kren towered into the sky, shimmering in light.

"Ooooh, shiiiiiny..." Fantasia cooed with apparent sincere delight at the view that was spread out below, the faint ruffling of the cooling salt breeze adding to the overall pleasant moment. "Okay, this was worth more than the price of admission," she offered, turning to grin at Thorn.

Thorn grinned broadly. "They say the tallest of the towers is a mile high..."

At the edge of the water, there was a small village with docks, with ferries ready to take people back and forth to the island.

"So let's go and take a look!" Fantasia replied enthusiastically, the energy staving off a level of the weariness she'd been feeling the last little bit. If nothing else, finding a bed to sleep in and a nice hot shower to go with it would be a heck of a lot better than sleeping in some grungy woods!

Thorn grinned and loped down toward the village, shifting back into elf form as she reached the buildings.

There was a grizzled old human sitting on the docks fishing. As they approached, he said, "Hello, ladies. Would you like a lift over to Fesirya?"

Fantasia followed after in a leisurely run, sucking in the refreshing sea air and the imagined hint of a scent of civilization ahead. She skidded to a stop near the ferryman, bouncing a bit on her toes, and grinned, "Yes please, if it wouldn't be too much trouble. Traveled a long way to get here."

"Well, hop in, it's just a short ride over." He put aside his fishing rod for the moment and untied the ropes securing the boat to the dock. Thorn climbed in after him and took a seat.

Fantasia stuck her tongue out at the ghostly nagging of an old friend who'd been a boating nut, and carefully boarded the small craft. She settled next to Thorn, her attention clearly drawn and being held by the shining spires of the city across the way as she tilted her head to one side to get a better look, ears perked in sharp interest and tail switching faintly to and fro in anticipation.

The trip across the channel was fairly uneventful. For all her staring at the towers, she didn't notice things moving in the water beneath them, which didn't bother trying to eat them or anything at any rate. They arrived at another set of docks on the offshore island.

"Thank you!" Fantasia said brightly, getting up as soon as the boat was securely docked and making her way off of it.

_You're not in Kansas, this isn't a yellow brick road, and you're sure no Dorothy_, she mused silently to herself, but oh how she could see the Wizard building someplace like this!

She looked back at Thorn with a grin. "C'mon, let's go go go go!"

Thorn chuckled softly, thanks the fisherman, and hopped off, trotting along after her toward the nearest of the towers.

"So!" Fantasia said, taking a look around and trying to absorb everything at once like any good fox with an eye for a quick route to scoot away by as well as hiding spots. "Where first? I have noooooo idea! Looks like there's so much to see and do and..." She made a delighted sound and bounced a bit.

Thorn chuckled again and headed into the tower. The lower parts of the tower were darker and tend to attract a lower class of citizen than the upper parts, effectively the "slums" of the towers. However, nothing jumped out and attempted to suck their blood or anything.

"Actually," Fantasia remarked, still looking back even as she stifled a yawn. "Now that we're here I'm really starting to realize just how long it's been since I slept last. Don't suppose they have any cheap places to crash around here, do they?" She snickered. "Gonna be a long swim back to the mainland otherwise."

"Yeah, let's head up a few levels though, the beds are more likely to be clean. Unless you don't mind bedbugs," Thorn smirked. She headed for a lift. The lift looked kind of like a high-tech egg-shaped elevator, with little glowing buttons.

"Ummm, ew, no." Fantasia replied, making a face at the idea as she followed. "Do you have any idea what that sort of thing does to fur? Yick!" She looked around at the elevator curiously, the appearance seeming more out of a sci-fi show than anything she might have expected. "What, no transporters?" she asked with a light laugh.

"Teleporters would be a bit overkill just for getting to one level to another, wouldn't they?" she said, hopping in the lift and pressing a button for about ten floors up. The lift moved smoothly and quietly, only making the faintest hum as it goes.

Fantasia just looked at Thorn for a second at that, thought about it a second, and chuckled softly. There were some really strange things in this place that she'd seen already, stuff that Gadget would've drooled over and never been able to be pried away from, what was one more?

"I suppose," she replied blandly, visibly refraining from making some quip or remark that would make a bizarre reference.

They came out at another floor and the elevator opened. The place seemed slightly more high class than the first level did at least, although they were still well within the "slums" district. Thorn headed off to locate an inn.

Fantasia followed after, having no idea about where to look for anything in this place and trusting to her native guide. Thorn had certainly been a wealth of good recommendations so far, no reason to distrust that now!

They did locate a suitable place and after checking it out for a moment determined it sanitary enough, and booked a room for the cycle.

"All set?" Fantasia asked, starting to be a little blurry at the edges and missing some of the finer details in passing as they go. If only they were some way to get rid of this silly sleep thing, she mused as she yawned, the world would be her oyster.

"Yep, it checks out." Thorn said, heading in to take a snooze herself. The room was simple and utilitarian, but clean.

"Dreamy," Fantasia murmured, and giggled softly. "I think I'll sleep a few days now."

So saying, she dropped down to four-footed form and curled up on top of the covers at the foot of the bed, tucking neatly into a ball and gazing outward with sleepy black eyes for moments more before settling into sleep.


	6. Void Mage

In the "morning", they woke up. Or at least whenever they felt like it at any rate.

Fantasia blinked awake, sneezing as her nose was ticked by a stray tuft of fur from her tail, and yawned broadly. Where... oh right, she remembered now, at least after looking around and spotting Thorn again. Strange planet with no sun or moon, long hike to the coast, and... shiny!

She bounded to her feet, remembering the energy of the discovery before her nap, and hopped down from the foot of the bed to the floor. Returning to her usual hybrid form, she padded off for the bathroom, intent on taking advantage of some hot water and hopefully not disturbing her companion too much in the meantime.

The bathroom was not particularly large, and appeared to lack soap (most likely if it had any, somebody probably stole it already), but it was clean enough and had a magical water faucet.

Soap wasn't really an issue, little things like that always got stowed away in a travel pack anyway, the real drew was a bit of warmth to work out the kinks from the previous day's travel. Fantasia reverted to homid form for that, though, knowing all too well what a pain it was to air-dry a body covered in silky, unmanageable fluff. Besides, quick was the fox and all that, they had things to do, sorta, and definitely things to see!

She emerged a little later, having traded out her clothing for a simple jumpsuit of practical form and function for now. Probably be due a change later, but may as well be comfy til then.

Thorn was starting to stir lazily, yawning slightly as she almost fell out of the bed. "Mmph..." She got up and stretched and yawned a bit. "Sleep well?"

"Don't remember a thing, other than some dreams," Fantasia replied brightly, obviously one of the disgusting people who tended to be chipper in the morning. "So I must have. How about you?"

Fantasia sat on the edge of the bed and started rummaging through her pack, not sure if she was looking for something or waiting for it to reach out and bite her.

"Just peachy," Thorn said. "It's funny being home again, after having been all over the place for the last few years."

"Ah-hah!" Fantasia exclaimed with delight, dragging the berries she'd picked and stowed away the night before out and popping one into her mouth. "Breakfast. Mmm..." She offered a handful in Thorn's direction with a lifted eye ridge.

Thorn giggled faintly and took some and munched on them absently. "Fesirya Kren... City of... well, a whole bunch of stuff, really. Lots of people, lots to see and do, if you're into that sort of thing at any rate." She chuckled.

"Beats the dark and dreadful any day," Fantasia replied with a grin. "Don't get me wrong, it has its place and all, but without a GPS locator and a laptop it's just dull, dull, dull... unless you figure out a way to liven things up at any rate." She snickered.

"If you say so. Whatever a 'laptop' might be..." Thorn licked a bit of berry juice off her fingers and wiped her hands on her tunic absently. "So where'll it be, then? The lower city slums? The high-class upper city? The middle tiers? The spirals?"

Finishing off the few berries left, Fantasia rummaged around again and emerged with another pair of candy bars.

"Hmm," she murmured, looking at the labels, then tossed one in Thorn's direction. "You get the light chocolate for dessert, I'm all for the original. As for where..." She shrugged, opening the wrapper neatly and taking a nibble. "Up to you where we start, I'm just the backwoods yokel around here."

Thorn shrugged and opened it and nibbled on it a bit. "So in other words, all of the above in some random order, then."

Fantasia grinned. "Pretty much, yep! Never been one to turn down a look at a new city, especially one that's as shiny as this one. Besides, that's what being a tourist is all about, well that and picking up tacky souvenirs that you can display at home to drive any visitors away."

Thorn chuckled softly. "Well, I'm afraid there probably isn't a gift shop with souvenirs in the slums, but you can probably find some amusing places regardless..."

"Now there's the real appeal," Fantasia grinned, digging out a digcam and then sealing the backpack again before standing. "Let's see what neat and nifty things this place has to offer, maybe someone will have heard about Shenzel passing this way too. Dunno." She settled the pack comfortably over her shoulder.

Thorn looked at the object she has brought out oddly, chuckled again and headed over for the door.

"Oh, waitasec!" Fantasia said. "Look this way..." As soon as Thorn did so, a flash went off and the camera whirred and clicked for a moment. "Gotta get pics for the guys back home," she offered in explanation. "Transfer it to the laptop later for posterity and personal reference."

"Whaaat?" Thorn wondered in confusion, staring at the thing for a moment.

Fantasia couldn't help but giggle at the expression and walked over to show it to Thorn, turning it so she could see the small display screen on the back which showed the image she'd just captured. "Digcam, digital camera," she explained. "It takes pictures and stores them for later use. Be pretty useless here if it wasn't one of Gizmo's specials that didn't require batteries. Heh."

"A magic picture device?" Thorn said, scratching her head and staring at the thing.

"Nah, it's not magic," Fantasia replied. "Well okay, maybe not the original design anyway though the gadgetry that Gizmo applied to it would qualify. It's just a machine that people built to carry around and take vacation photos, pics of friends, that sort of thing. A hundred bucks at Wal-Mart will get you a basic enough version."

"What's a Wal-Mart?" Thorn wondered. "Oh, hell, I'm going to be asking questions all day at this rate. Let's go."

"Oh, um, yeah," Fantasia replied with a grin. "Let's get out of here, it's not like Wal-Mart's an important reference anyway and I did kinda forget about the 'no bizarre references' thing. Heh. Sorry?"

Thorn snickered and headed out of the inn and off into the "streets" of the lower city. A vast network of corridors passed for streets in the city, populated by many races, but there weren't too many elves this far down, except for a smattering of drow and a couple wood elves and half-elves. There were goblins, orcs, kobolds, humans, dwarves, gnomes, and various others.

Fantasia snapped the occasional pic in passing, though making sure that the flash was disabled beforehand. Sure, the fae were running around all over the place back home, but the D&D freaks among them were gonna go nuts if they ever got a look at some of this stuff.

"This is just cool," Fantasia said, looking around and enjoying the scenery with considerable energy.

Thorn chuckled softly. They passed several pawn shops, clubs, taverns, restaurants, a butcher shop selling questionable meats.

Thorn said, "So, what looks interesting?"

"The real question," Fantasia paused and looked around. "Is what _doesn't_ look interesting. Well, I think the meat market's off the itinerary, never been a huge fan of gigantic slabs of bloody beef to hang over pits and roast, so... hmm."

This wasn't really the sort of thing Thorn generally went for. She was generally be avoiding the slums like the plague. But today, she didn't really care. She shrugged a bit and looked across the street, where loud music was emerging from one "building", though the restaurant and tavern near it were a bit more quiet.

Fantasia's ears twitched, the tip of her tail swaying unconsciously to the beat she hadn't immediately picked up on and only now drawing her full attention.

"Oh, definitely that one," she said, grabbing Thorn's hand and dragging her in the direction of the music. Dive or high-class club, didn't really matter if there was good music involved, there was always fun to be had.

Thorn went, "Heh..." and let herself be dragged into the club.

It wasn't really what one would call the most high-class of places, the music they were playing a sort of magically tweaked heavy metal. Colored lights danced about this way and that, and the place was occupied by slightly more elves than outside, as well as an ogre, a minotaur, three lizardmen, and a dancing nali. There were various tables with drinks and food arranged on them.

The music was loud and had a good beat to it, that was all that matters to Fantasia, and she wandered into the club like a fish swimming in water. Music? Check. People? Check. That pretty much sealed it as a place that she was sure to be comfortable in, and she giggled at the thought that at least there weren't any strippers here. Well, the nali wasn't wearing very much, but considering his thick coat of black and white striped fur it wasn't like anything could be seen anyway.

Thorn smirked a bit and wandered in and grabbed a drink from the refreshment table. Fantasia went for a drink as well, though taking full advantage of the opportunity to watch her fellow club-goers with a practiced and, in the case of the nali, appreciative eye. Just because she wasn't planning on buying, didn't mean she couldn't enjoy the view since she _was_ sorta on vacation and all! Taking a sip of the drink, she wrinkled her muzzle and looked at it for a moment as though just bitten, then shrugged and drank again.

Inevitably the call of the music affected her, even just listening and watching, small twitches and movements answering to the rhythm behind it. Brought back memories of the band, which in turn brought a quiet smile.

Over to one side of the room, the minotaur was harassing a dark-haired half-elf. Nobody seemed to be really paying much attention to the increasingly violent bull-man, aside from giving him a wide berth and leaving him to annoy the half-elf on his own. Thorn watched from a corner of her eye, but didn't really care to interfere against something two feet taller than her with sharp horns.

"Hmm," Fantasia mutters, glancing in that direction, a thin grin that those who know her would recognize as a signal to run like hell twitching at the corners of her muzzle. Sure, kitsune weren't exactly known for being fighters or anyone to ride to the defense of someone else on the back of a horse while wearing shining armor, but there _were_ other ways to deal with problems.

She wasn't quite decided yet, though, as bar brawls and people getting the snot knocked out of themselves was a common enough occurrence wherever you went. Taking another sip, she mulled it over idly while turning part of her attention back to the dancing feline. To be a nuisance or not to be, was that really a question?

The problem rapidly decided to solve itself as the minotaur decided to take a punch at the half-elf. The man, quick as lightning, lifted a hand and tendrils of darkness shot from his fingertips, encompassing the minotaur and swallowing him. The minotaur vanished without a trace, as if he had never been there. People stopped and looked uncomfortably in that direction for a moment before returning to what they were doing. Thorn gaped.

Fantasia blinked, the handful of ideas teasing at the edges of her mind freezing in mid-thought as the altercation resolved itself in a decidedly unhealthy fashion for the minotaur.

"Guess there's something to say for not pissing off the wizard," Fantasia said, though likely unheard in the general mayhem of the music, and she grinned. "Good for him. Stupid bullies anyway." She blinked again, then snickered at the unintentional pun.

"Holy shit," Thorn said, going up next to her and almost spilling her drink. "That's a Void Mage! What's a Void Mage doing in the slums?!"

"Wha-huh?" Fantasia muttered, juggling her glass to keep it from spilling all over her. "What's a Void Mage? Hehe, other than something to a-void making mad at you?" Reminded her of some things she'd seen some of the leeches do in years past, shadows and all.

"Void Magic... the rarest of all the Talents," Thorn explained. "They're the ones who can change reality itself... He didn't just kill that minotaur, he wrote him out of existence!"

"Wow, that's kinda harsh." Fantasia blinked, then looked over toward the half-elf. "Can't say I blame him for doing it though, with tall, dark, and beefy looking like he wanted to turn the guy into hamburger. Why the surprise about seeing one downtown, though? Sounded like they went pretty much anywhere they wanted to."

"I just don't see why any High Elkandu would _want_ to be down here," Thorn commented. "Unless he were trying to get away from someone, or something..."

"Spider sense tingling..." Fantasia remarked with an odd grin, the appeal of the exotic and the hint of danger at the suggested possibility sparking the self-admitted adrenaline junky nature. "I'm gonna go see if he wants to dance," she added, setting the drink aside.

"Er.. have fun?" Thorn said, retrieving her own drink and standing back to make sure if fireworks were going to fly, none of them hit her.

The half-elf was enjoying a rather uncrowded section of the club as people were giving him a rather wide berth after that little demonstration. He looked a bit sighful and depressive.

"I always do," Fantasia replied.

She grinned broadly as she turned and headed in that direction, quietly amused by the space cleared out around the man. Couldn't blame the crowd for that, people tended to be a bit twitchy when they saw someone go out in gruesome fashion, but she wasn't exactly from a normal world or even considered entirely sane for it in any event.

"Why the sad eyes?" she crooned as she stopped nearby.

The half-elf looked up at her a bit in surprise, then said, "Oh, just have a lot on my mind. Nothing that concerns you, really..."

Fantasia grinned and chuckled lightly. "Well sure, you don't even know me, so how would it? Just seems kinda strange in the wake of the bullyboy taking a sudden exit... was thinking about spilling a drink on him myself, just for the amusement that would ensue, but you beat me to the punch in spectacular fashion."

"Oh, him... he was probably going to try to kill me over something stupid..." He looked fairly uncomfortable and changed the subject. "My name's Morin. What brings you to this part of town?"

"Just taking a look around, looking for a bit of fun, the usual," she replied. "And they call me Fantasia, pleasure to meet you, even if the rest of the club and even my native guide would probably think I'm nuts for saying so."

Morin snorted softly. "I never hurt anyone who wasn't trying to hurt me first..."

"Perceptions," Fantasia replied. "It's all about perceptions, and hey, it's not like they called the cops to drag you off to jail even with the club full of witnesses or anything, right? Besides, anyone who couldn't get a whiff of the hostility coming off of the moo-boy had to be stone cold drunk, so all to the good."

"Bah, the police don't dare range this low in the city. Not worth their time and manpower," he said, taking a sip of his drink. "Whatever."

"Sooooo," Fantasia replied, ears tilting forward in curiosity, "as my friend was saying, it's pretty unusual to see someone like yourself hanging out in places that people like me find fun, what's dragged a mage with a dose of smarts and a healthy chunk of power down in the dumps?"

"Oh, I've been wandering around here and there ever since Zuna Taike destroyed the school I was learning at," he replied. "No biggie, really."

"What'd she call you..." Fantasia muttered, then brightened. "Ah right, a Void Mage. Said something about you being able to change reality and other things along those lines... why didn't you just do something to change events back at this school?"

He grunted softly. "Zuna Taike is a Void Mage as well, and a far more powerful one than I. The event came completely by surprise and I didn't even realize what had happened before I found myself alone on another world entirely, and later found out that the entire school had been ripped apart and its inhabitant scattered across the universe..."

"Sounds like a lovely person to invite over for coffee and a power bar," Fantasia replied dryly, "So now you're just wandering out and about and occasionally making blowhards disappear, huh? Might wanna try a higher-rent district if you plan on avoiding that sort of thing. All sorts of unsavory types hang around down in the slums, like me for instance." She grinned.

"Bah, I'm not too concerned about a few hot-headed jerks," he replied. "And what's so unsavory about you? You don't _look_ like you have more teeth than braincells."

Fantasia laughed lightly and grinned. "I've known plenty of people who'd disagree with you, believe me! But hey, they just don't know how to relax and have a little fun. Speaking of..." she began, then looked at him with sudden speculation. "Umm, off topic for a second here, sorry to derail that thought train, but this Void magic thing of yours, can it be used to destroy _anything_?"

"Just about," he replied. "If it's not too heavily warded, and even then it's just a matter of time to wear down the wards with antimagic... Why?"

"Well..." Fantasia replied, reaching into a pocket of her jumpsuit and dragging out an ornate gold chain with a heavy-set crystal pendant that glowed faintly in the dimmed light of the club. "This. It belonged to a really unpleasant person who had a rather unfortunate accident recently, one that I'd really rather not see him come back from and it has something to do with storing his soul until it can possess someone else..."

She was dangling the chain between her fingertips as though it was a loathsome, poisonous serpent, and had yet to personally touch the crystal itself since she'd swiped it from around Jezzy's neck a few days back.

Morin peered at it for a moment, sensing what enchantments might be on it and said, "Some sort of soulstone, then?"

"Something like that," Fantasia replied. "I don't know its history really, other than it's really old and probably made out of some really nasty things out of the Deep Umbra back home, maybe even forged by a Nexus Crawler since the psycho was known to have one on a leash for a long time."

"Deep Umbra? I'll presume you're talking about the Void or the Abyss or something, then? And what's a Nexus Crawler?"

"Heh, sorry," Fantasia replied. "Still getting used to the terminology here... that'd be something way in the deep and dark parts of the Ethereal, where all the really ugly and nasty things of the world eventually end up. A Nexus Crawler comes from that area, a really powerful spirit that has the ability to warp reality to its whim. Nasty piece of business, rip right through a whole pack of 'shifters in no time."

"Right. We call that the Void here. Even most Elkandu don't dare go that deep, unless they're feeling a bit out of their mind, and most who do don't return... only true Void Mages like me can really travel there safely. Does that sound like what you're talking about then?"

"That sounds about the same," Fantasia nodded. "Though there were definitely places that you could go there if the inclination for darkness was in your soul... like the Abyss or Malfeas. Both places utterly corrupted and not really a good vacation spot."

"Not especially, no. I wouldn't really like to visit Pandemonium either," he agreed, cracking his fingers and raising his hand toward the thing, but not touching it. "Alright then."

Fantasia held it up for him to get a better angle of view on the thing, her muzzle curling in instinctive dislike and loathing as her eyes were inevitably drawn to look at the crystal itself.

"Go back to the hell that spawned you," she hissed softly, eyes sparking with an uncommonly seen thing in her... hate.

Morin seemed to take she was really serious about this, and let out a blast of Void Magic at it. Crackling black lightning skittered through it and penetrated it, brief flashed of blue as the enchantments unraveled, but the destructive magic did not touch her.

The faint snarl faded to a vindictive grin as Fantasia watched the magic curl around and twist at the accursed crystal, remembering all too well the people that the crazy bastard had sent off to their damnation in one way or another. It seemed fitting somehow to send the manner of his return back to oblivion in such a fashion, and the idea that the magic _might_ affect her either wasn't recognized or clearly ignored without reaction.

In moments, the thing was gone as if it had never been there. Morin looked fairly well satisfied. He certainly didn't really care who this person really was. Fantasia just looked at the empty space for a moment, then curled the chain around her hand and looked at him with a decidedly brighter grin.

"Thanks," she said. "You have no idea how much that means to me and a bunch of other people that aren't around anymore to see it..." Her expression quieted for the briefest flicker, then the grin returned. "So, anything I can do in appreciation? Saved me a lot of work just happening to be here."

"Oh, it's not a worry... Heh, sometimes I have to think that my own abilities are 'evil' myself, since I can't really create anything like Void Mages are supposed to be able to, just destroy them..."

"There's worse things," Fantasia replied with a shrug, idly playing with the links of the chain. "At least you don't go around doing it for no good reason or just for the hell of it, right?"

"Certainly not," he replied. "Only if necessary, generally."

"Soooo..." Fantasia returned to the irrepressible grin. "What're you doing in a club with lively music and a sad face? People might get the wrong idea and start thinking you're a Goth in their typical leech-wannabe depressive state. Where's the point if you don't let yourself have a little fun?"

Morin grunted. "Well, I _was_ kind of hoping to cheer myself up a bit, but Mr. Bollocks had other ideas."

"So do it," Fantasia replied brightly, slinging the pack off her shoulder and dropping it in a shadowy spot nearby that she enhances a bit with a touch of illusion. "Dance with me, unless this is just, to borrow a phrase from an old friend, Too Damn Fuzzy..." She chuckled lightly and shifted back to homid form. "So it's not exactly my usual club-wear, but whaddaya say?"

"Er... okay then..." he said a bit nervously, standing up and going over by her.

Fantasia laughed and grabbed him by the hands, dragging him out onto the main dance floor despite the cleared space that had to shift to accommodate the big, scary mage. She didn't care in the least, her eyes laughing merrily at them in fact, and tilted her head to listen to the music for a second.

"Oh yeah!" she exclaimed. "Never was one for a waltz anyway, much better to have a real beat!"

It became quickly apparent that Morin, in spite of his elvish blood, couldn't dance. He did try, however, but his hopping about couldn't really especially be called "dancing" except by middle-schoolers in the early nineteen-nineties.

Fantasia was much more comfortable with the style, moving with acquired and natural grace to the driving beat and mostly managing to stifle the bubbling mirth at poor Morin. It wasn't a sneering attitude, or even the least bit condescending, just pure amusement at the clear display that he really just needed to relax!

That thought brought a wicked grin, and between one motion and the next she returned to the hybrid form, tails swaying behind her. If the nali could get away with it, she certainly could, and it wasn't as though she was particularly modest to begin with. C'mon, she was a Glass Walker! She let the music roll over her, mingling with the playful amusement, and slowly started to strip.

Morin gaped a bit in her general direction and tried to keep dancing, although he was fairly at a loss for words at the moment and failed to manage to actually say much of anything.

The jumpsuit wasn't really that difficult to dispense with, and Fantasia left it laying on the ground with a flick of one foot behind her as she stalked toward and then around Morin. Fingerpads brush lightly here and there, tails curling flirtingly around as she circled him.

"Just gotta relax and let it flow," she cooed softly, grinning as she flicked her tongue to touch his ear.

Morin stammered for a moment, stumbling and swaying and entirely failing to relax in anything much more than nearly falling over.

Fantasia laughed lightly and brushed her muzzle under the line of his jaw, whiskers tickling his skin as she drew away. She had to have some pity on the poor guy, and she retrieved the jumpsuit to drape across her arm.

"C'mon, I don't think you can handle much more of this," she giggled, grabbing his hand and tugging him back toward where they started out.

Morin let himself be dragged along, still babbling and bug-eyed. He blinked at her for a moment and shook his head out a bit. Fantasia left him for a moment to snag both of them a drink, returning to offer him a glass.

"I'd say I was sorry," she remarked, "But I'd be lying. Just can't help it when an opportunity that good presents itself." She took a gulp of her drink and grinned quirkily at him.

"Er... that's okay, really," he said, taking the drink and drinking it. "No, no, really..."

"You really need to unwind and relax a bit," Fantasia smiles, shaking her head, "Don't let little things like worrying about hostile people get ya down, just..." She shrugged. "Have some fun now and then, huh? What's life if you can't enjoy it?"

That was ultimately a part of why the foxes had come into being in the first place, and she was sure going to keep up with that part of the deal!

"I'm perfectly relaxed. Really," he insisted, drinking more of his drink absently. "You just ... startled me..."

"I have that affect on people alllll the time, believe me," Fantasia chuckled. "That's part of the fun that _I_ get out of adding a little spice and interest to other people's lives. S'why I kept the band going for as long as I could keep all the oddballs together... I like to see people happy and having a good time."

"Well, I'd surely hate to disappoint, then," he replied, chuckling nervously.

Fantasia smiled, amusement still bubbling inside at his nervousness. "Well, you've been a doll," she said, "But I better get back to my friend and off to what we were looking for. Thanks for everything."

She darted in to lick his cheek lightly, grinning, then ambles over to retrieve her pack before heading back to look for Thorn.

"Hey, where you going!?" he said, almost dropping his drink as he stumbled after her.

"Need to find my friend and native guide," Fantasia replied, "Then back off to looking around the city a bit and maybe poking around to see if we can't find someone."

Thorn smirked at them as they showed up at the particular patch of wall she'd been leaning against. "You make quite the pair," Thorn observed.

Fantasia laughed lightly and stuck her tongue out at Thorn. "Oh stop," she said, "Didn't put on any more of a show than the big kitty was when we came in."

Morin was blushing fiercely and looked as though he was about to curl up and die somewhere or something.

Thorn smirked some more. "So, have you had enough fun here, then?"

Fantasia smirked, looking over at Morin and barely restraining a giggle as she started putting the jumpsuit back on.

"Yup," she replied, "Decent atmosphere, okay music, but lousy drinks. Definitely have to give this place two out of five stars. Not that I'm complaining, mind you, little dives like this are generally where you can have the most fun!"

Thorn chuckled. "Better drinks, check. I think we'll need to go up a few levels for that." She grinned.

Fantasia grinned and shrugged. "I don't drink all that much anyway, gets in the way of other entertainments. I mean, how dull is it to wake up the next morning and not even remember who you wake up with?!"

She smirked, zipping up the suit, and tucks the majority of her tails back out of sight.

"I can't say I ever had that problem myself," Thorn commented. "Would you prefer some nice worfberry juice or lernade then? Oh! I know! There's an ice cream parlor on the twenty-third level!"

Fantasia's ears perked noticeably at that. "Ice cream, you say? Why didn't you mention that earlier? Never would have left you languishing against a wall for this long with such a sweet temptation to be offered."

"I forgot all about it," Thorn said, skipping off toward the nearest lift.

Morin murmured uncertainly, "Right, ice cream, okay then..." and trailed along after them.

"Yes, ice cream!" Fantasia replied enthusiastically, looking back at him following then ahead at Thorn who didn't seem to mind, shrugged and waved him along. "C'mon, Morin, it's just the thing to cheer you right up. Sugar is the best possible thing for a blue funk, believe me."

Morin said, "Okay then..." and staggered along to the lift.

Thorn popped the button to take them up several floors. Fantasia hummed lightly, the tune one she remembered from elevator muzak along the way that seemed appropriate in the situation, and bounced lightly as she waited for the next floor.

The doors opened and Thorn led the way to a rather happy, cheerful ice cream parlor serving every imaginable flavor of ice cream. This floor was fairly well higher-class than the slums that they'd just come out of, but neither was it what one would generally call "upper class".

Fantasia followed readily, the prospect sounding very enjoyable after a few days without any real, true sugar gluttony. The concept of high and low class really didn't mean much to her, knowing well that it was largely a matter of attitude and appearance when it all came down to it and quite familiar with the various walks of life. Right now though, she delighted in ordering a sundae.

"Baskin Robbins eat your heart out," Fantasia murmured and munched.

Thorn got a dish of ice cream with brightly colored candies in it. Morin got an ice cream cone with fudge. He sat around quickly licking at it absently.

"Mmmm," Fantasia murmured and sighed luxuriously, licking the spoon. "Heaven comes in small doses, sometimes." She set the spoon aside, toying a bit with the chain still curled around her hand in thought as she looked at the other two. "Considering all the people around here," she said, "and all the things to be seen and done, I wonder if Shenzel might have passed through?"

Morin shrugged absently, not even recognizing the name.

Thorn commented, "I somehow doubt it... she was never particularly fond of cities..."

"Bah!" Fantasia replied. "Silly people avoiding cities in favor of the great outdoors. What's to 'great' about it anyway? Fleas, ticks, and all sorts of other bloodsucking predators, not to mention rain and snow. What's wrong with curling up in a nice warm motel room instead?"

Absently, she dug out the digcam again and took a snapshot of Thorn and Morin, smirking faintly.

Morin blinked for a moment and probably ended up getting his picture taken with an odd look on his face and chocolate ice cream on his nose.

Thorn snickered softly and said, "Maybe things are different where you came from, I can't say I've ever heard of a werewolf who _liked_ cities..."

"Well actually." Fantasia grinned. "Most of em don't, it's really only the Glass Walkers and Bone Gnawers that spend any time in the cities, the rest of em hang out in the boonies roaming around like little Indian tribes and fighting each other over caerns... or at least they used to do that. Heh. Still seems pretty silly to me, though, when there's so much to see and _do_ in a city while the woods have got what, more trees?"

"Trees. Rivers. Mountains. Rocks. Wild animals. Snakes. Bugs..."

"Yep." Fantasia nodded. "And don't forget other shapeshifters that're out there and probably looking to add your hide to the wall if you're not one of their special little clique. Okay, so the city has a few problems of its own, but you're not gonna find an ice cream parlor out in the middle of nowhere either." She grinned.

"Well... you do have a point there," Thorn admitted reluctantly, munching on her ice cream.

Morin made no comment, licking at his cone and staring at Fantasia some more.

Fantasia chuckled lightly. "Nothing wrong with the woods really, just that there's a lot of good things to be said for the cities too. Personally I like seeing all the people bustling all over the place and doing whatever they're doing, shows the energy of life and living just as much as the trees and shrubs out in the wilds do. All a matter of perspective, and a bit of moderation."

"I don't think I would care to live on Corstad, though," Thorn commented. "The entire planet is just one huge city sprawling off forever..."

"Eck, sounds like the Sprawl from..." Fantasia broke off and grinned, then went on, "Anyway, no, that kind of thing isn't really good either, gotta have a little balance in there someplace. There's something to be said for going swimming in a nice cool mounting pool in the summer, then curling up in the grass to dry and doze."

"From what?" Thorn wondered.

Morin continued to sit quietly and finished up his ice cream cone and licked his fingers, but he didn't seem to notice the bit on his nose.

Fantasia giggled. "It was another odd reference, but I promised to try and keep those down. The Scar in the Ethereal back home is a lot like that though, too, the Weaver went totally nuts there and it's all one nasty, filthy city that you just do _not_ want to be anywhere near if you like keeping yourself the way that you are."

"Eh, it's not really _that_ bad, for a brief visit at least. They've got this huge mall there that they claim sells absolutely everything."

"Blech," Fantasia replied. "Never been much of a shopper myself, though a lot of people go nuts over it including the boys with their toys." She smirked. "Not saying that there's no point to it, but most of my stuff is either custom kit to the max or off-the-shelf from anywhere you'd care to look."

Thorn chuckled softly. "Well, there isn't anywhere else in the galaxy that sells self-cleaning clothes."

"Hah!" Fantasia retorted lightly, "You never dealt with a Glass Walker female Don! That stuff's dead guaranteed to be on _their_ shelves, believe it. Poor Gizmo got drafted into making some replacements for the Dragonlady when she went breezing through town once, checking in on Peacemaker and other relations."

Thorn finished up her ice cream and glanced sidelong at Morin, who was still sitting there quietly with chocolate on his nose and trying to be inconspicuous.

Fantasia caught Thorn's look and offered a quick shushing finger to her muzzle, grinning. "So, we ready to head off into the great blue yonder again?" she asked, pushing back and standing, stretching languidly.

Thorn said, "Sure, where to now? I don't think I care to eat anything else for the moment. Hmm, what else is there around here..."

"Actually," Fantasia replied, circling around the table, "Thanks to Morin here, one of my reasons for coming here is all done." She leaned over and licked the tip of his nose and taking care of the spot of ice cream with a foxish grin, whispering, "Missed a spot," before straightening, "So I'm not really sure _where_ to go. Probably have to head back alllll the way back where we came to get a track on Shenzel, so that can wait for now."

Morin blinked for a moment and touched his nose and said, "Er, what? What reason?"

Fantasia held up her hand with the chain still curled around and twined through at the base of her fingers, and grinned. "This one, silly boy. I didn't want that bit of nastiness running around and things ending up badly because of it. So running across you was a real stroke of luck."

He blinked again and said, "Oh, yeah, of course, that, right..."

"My, how quickly they forget," Fantasia replied with an air of feigned dismay, resting the back of her hand to her forehead. "And by the next morning the memory is completely gone, regardless of how memorable the performance may have been." She dropped the act and giggled quietly.

"Oh, no, I haven't been drinking much, really, and I'm a half-elf, half-elves aren't allowed to forget anything, we're just supposed to spend centuries angsting over our dual nature as being part human and part elf and oh woe is us because um... yeah."

Fantasia giggled yet again, the monologue striking her as immensely funny and drawing comparisons to how the metis were often portrayed in days of old.

"He's cute," she said, looking over at Thorn, "Can we keep him? I promise to feed and take him for walks, pleeeeeeease?"

Her ears turned back as she settled into wide-eyed, emo-kid pleading mode, though the spark of laughter dancing in them was a dead giveaway.

Thorn laughed aloud and said, "Now, now, are you sure he's housebroken?"

"Well?" Fantasia asked, looking at Morin. "You better be, pal, or I'm takin' ya back to the store!"

She could really feel for the guy, obviously waaay out of his depth here, especially since she did _so_ enjoy flirting now and again, but it was just too much _fun_ not to tease a bit.

Morin blushed inexplicably and said, "Um..."

Thorn giggled uncontrollably.

"Oh he really is too cute not to drag along," Fantasia said, "Besides, he already said he was just wandering aimlessly anyway, we may as well do it together!"

She considered saying something more, maybe conning Thorn into doing a bit of clothes shopping with Morin to officiate, but she was afraid he'd pass out from the stress. The thought was enough to draw out light, silvery laughter.

Morin said uncertainly, "Well, okay, yeah, sure, I don't mind, really..."

"Well good." Fantasia grinned. "Now that that's settled..." She looked over at Thorn questioningly/ "Any thoughts from the native guide as to where we go next? Definitely enough on the food side for a while, time to poke our noses into something else that's shiny and entertaining!"

Thorn pondered for a moment and said, "Standing around on top of the Center Tower staring at people? Hmm, nah, that's more entertaining in Torn Elkandu. Although the ones in Fesirya Kren are slightly less likely to hand you pamphlets to join factions that don't exist."

"Oh yeah, definitely a zoo back there," Fantasia agreed. "Even more than _I_ was used to, and that's saying a lot! Nah, people watching's for the Torries, weirdos, it's a lot more fun to interact with em in some way. Preferably some way that they don't catch you at when you're done. Hehe."

Thorn pondered some more. "Oh, I'm sure you can think of something." She grinned a bit.


	7. Leaving the City

Lots of things to do and see in any city, Fantasia knew, and they'd really only scratched the surface when it came down to it. She had a feeling that Thorn had about had her fill of it, though, and Morin definitely seemed a little more off and prone to being dazed than even she thought was possible. Definitely time to move back along before she managed to break her new playmates irrevocably.

She'd brought the idea up to them the night before, and conned them into a final massive throwdown at one of the local bars as a last act of defiance. That would probably explain the fuzzy state of her mind and tongue, and bleary vision as she woke up and yawned broadly.

Thorn was asleep somewhere nearby, wherever they might be. Morin was just kind of sitting there staring at her quietly.

"Blah," Fantasia muttered, throwing her arms up and stretching languidly. "That's why I don't tend to drink much, I don't remember even half of last night." She smirked and shook her head, looking down at herself covered in fur and nothing else. "Not sure I wanna know."

Sliding from the bed, she murmured a barely distinct greeting to her companions, then heads for the bathroom after snagging her backpack.

Morin smirked faintly and says as she was going, "Don't worry, um, nothing _too_ uncalled for happened. Really..."

"That wasn't my worry," Fantasia replied, looking over her shoulder with a very foxish grin, then turned to the minutiae of getting rid of the funk from the last night's revelry. Water could be heard running from the shower, and the inevitable faint hint of quiet singing, but it was brief enough as she emerged a little later looking quite a bit more alert, chipper, and ready to face the world again.

Thorn was sitting quietly washing herself with her tongue. In cat form thankfully or Morin would have really a show.

"Ick," Fantasia remarked, dropping to the edge of the bed and rummaging around in her pack. "Were you born a cat or something? Only the lupus were weird enough to consider that perfectly normal."

Fantasia chuckled, finding what she was looking for, and drew out a sleekly designed laptop that she flipped open and worked on transferring the pictures she'd taken along the way over.

Thorn glanced up at her in confusion. "No, why? And what's a lupus?"

The laptop seemed to purr as it was put to work, and Fantasia chuckled lightly at the memory of its origins... a lupus in fact.

"There's three breeds of shapeshifters back there: homid, metis, and lupus/feline/whatever," Fantasia explained. "Homids are born as humans and tend to have a greater affinity and inclination to all the normal things of society, like me. The animal breeds, on the other hand, were born as wolves or foxes, whatever other species, and don't have the ability to turn human until they're mature enough to go through their Firsting... their first change."

"Well, I wasn't born as a cat. Nor a human, for that matter," Thorn smirked faintly.

Fantasia grinned, glancing over at Thorn. "Right, the pointy-ears thing. Well, don't know how it works here..." she returned to organizing the photos a bit, manipulating and cropping them in Photoshop and dropping them into various folders, "but shapeshifting is a very race-specific thing. Human only. No fae or mages allowed, and unlike the movies it wasn't something infectious to transmit through a bite or sex."

"Then again I'm something of an unusual case," she replied. "The 'native' shapeshifters on Daresa and every other world I've been to were generally humans. Then again, elves are just pointy-eared humans anyway. Supposedly humans were physically altered to have pointy ears several thousand years ago or something..."

"Awww, say it ain't so!" Fantasia shut the program down and stuffed laptop and digcam back into the pack, shifting to look over at Thorn. "You'll break the heart of Legolas-droolers everywhere with a line like that! Elves aren't just pointy-eared humans, they're elegant and graceful, refined... ultimately mrowr-worthy. Hehe."

"Well, there were more changes than just that, of course. Elves are also more agile and slender, more intelligent on average (although I've known some fairly idiotic elves in my time too), and more capable of using magic."

"See, that right there explains why legions of fangirls everywhere sighed over the Lord of the Rings," Fantasia replied, chuckling. "And why the elves had such an instant following after the Awakening, much to their chagrin in some cases. Saw more than one get mobbed at a local pub afterwards, funny stuff."

Thorn chuckled. "Then again, I suppose another exception would be the dragons... Scregor can turn into pretty much whatever humanoid form he wants.. dwarf, elf, human, tends to prefer dwarf though..."

"I'd heard some stories about dragons that could do that," Fantasia replied.

She stood and went over to retrieve the sheathed klaive and just looked at it for a second wondering when she'd left it laying around, then shrugged and crossed back to drop it tip-first into the pack, clearly something along the lines of one of the Elkandu bags of holding.

"Never seen one, though," she added, then grinned, "Or don't think so anyway."

"But they're just 'dragons', and not 'were-dragons' or anything..." Thorn commented. She stretched a bit and stood up in elf form again.

Morin smirked a bit quietly watching Fantasia.

"Well yeah, that's the old-time magic for ya," Fantasia replied. "Don't know much about their abilities other than what legends and gamer geeks might spout out, though." She chuckled, tying the pack closed and settling it over her shoulders. "There are stranger things in heaven and earth, Horation... or however that old quote goes."

"What?" Thorn said, then shrugged. "They had a class once on the various terminology the Elkandu use for degrees of abilities... There's doppelgangers, they can change their features or imitate people but can only take on humanoid forms... There's changelings, who can turn into multiple forms... and metamorphs, who can turn into anything... and then there's Changers, who are capable of changing not only themselves but others as well..."

"Now there's an idea just waiting to be abused," Fantasia replied, standing and stretching, then yawning broadly and fluffing out her fur in a shake to dispel the last of sleep. "Poof! You're a mouse. Meet my cat. Hehe, not saying that there wouldn't be oodles of potential in something like that if the person who had it had the right mindset and a bit of a sense of humor." Note to the universe: _never_ get this near a kitsune. _Ever_.

"That _is_ the reason why Ishane put an enchantment in Harmony's mind to prevent her from changing anyone without their explicit permission," Thorn said. "And a damned good thing he did, too..."

"Ew..." Fantasia shuddered at the memory. "That thing has the ability to... well, of course she does." She thought about it a second. "She _did_ offer me a set of antlers and wings after all, though seemed a bit put out when she found out I was a natural shapeshifter. Poor thing." She smirked.

"If Ishy hadn't done that, she'd have just turned you into an elephant-moose-goat-emu and asked questions later."

"Remind me to thank this Ishane properly sometime if we ever run across em, or a temple or something. Heh," Fantasia replied, the idea of being anything but what she was is anything _but_ foxy. "So, ready to hit the road? Plenty of time to chat on the way."

"Oh, well, he's kind of dead at the moment. Dante executed him because he nuked an entire universe," Thorn said.

"Oh," Fantasia replied, blinking. "Well that's kinda got to suck. Geez, is there anyone or anything around here that isn't screwy or screwy and dead?"

"I think I'm really pretty far up the scale of 'normal' for an Elkandu," Thorn said.

Morin continued to ogle her quietly.

Fantasia grinned. "I dunno about that, seeing as you just spent the last few days in the company of someone that other folks have been known to call nutty as a fruitbat over the years..." She hmmed and shrugged. "Batricia would argue that point, though, saying that the Camazotz were nothing like me and that was an insult. Hehe."

"You haven't met many of the High Elkandu yet, have you," Thorn said, clearly not actually asking a question. "Harmony's fairly out there even for them, but a fair enough indication. They're all messed up in their own ways. You ready to head out?"

"Nope, just heard about some of them," Fantasia replied and smirked. "And of course I'm ready to head out, I already asked didn't I?" She snickered and headed for the door, breaking into a cheerful hum.

Thorn chuckled and headed out. "Yeah... Azale, Keolah, Silver, Sardill, Jami... A bunch of messed up people they are..."

Having obtained a bit of familiarity with the territory in the past few days, Fantasia led the way with a light step, in a disgustingly good mood for it being so early in the day.

"So where do you fit in on the scale of the Elkandu, Morin?" she asked along the way, tossing a bright grin his way. "Other than a bit quiet and a tad shy?"

Morin protested quietly, "I'm not shy and quiet... But anyhow, I _am_ a Void Mage, and Void Mages are rare enough that they're automatically considered High Elkandu regardless of their actual skill and power level, like Catalysts and Chronomancers."

Fantasia smirked quietly at his protestation, careful not to let it show too much as she didn't want to hurt his ego or anything beyond repair. She liked him, he was silly.

"So," she said, hopping aboard a lift to take them back down to the docks level and carefully schooling her expression to cheerful curiosity. "What do _you_ have to say about your counterparts? C'mon, give! I haven't had a chance to grill one of you yet for further information..." She grinned slyly. "Don't make me resort to more extreme measures of interrogation. I hear being tickled to death is hellish."

"Well..." he said. "They're completely batshit insane. Looney as toons. A few fries short of... yeah."

Fantasia laughed, dark eyes glittering with amusement at the frank assessment of the Elkandu. "Well, that's the most straightforward reply I could have hoped for," she said, shooing them out as their destination arrived and they could head for the docks. "Though I _was_ kinda looking for a teensy bit more information than that. I'm a tourist, remember? None of this stuff makes any sense to me, and I can't have any fun like that!"

"None of it makes sense to us either, and we've been here all our lives," Morin admitted.

"Hmm," Fantasia murmured thoughtfully, turning to walk backwards in front of them, tails swaying energetically this way and that. "I suppose that levels the playing field a little bit, then. If no one knows what's going on, who's going to notice one little fox dropping the occasional monkey wrench into the works when the opportunity presents itself?" She grinned brightly and turned back, skipping off to find a boat.

"Yeah, you just generally act like you belong and nobody's going to notice the difference anyway," Morin said, trotting along to the docks. "Elkandu get to a point where they're all jaded and cynical and it takes quite a lot to surprise them."

"Sounds like a lot of the shapeshifters back home at one point." Fantasia nodded. "Though things inevitably turn around to liven things up when they're least expecting it."

"And even when something does turn up to screw with their perceptions, they tend to just go on as if nothing happened in due order anyway."

Fantasia looked over at him, ears perked in disbelief. "You're kidding me, right? No one could be so goofy as to just ignore something that hopped out of the woodwork to bite em in the butt!"

"Well, no, in such an occurrence they'd most likely scream 'Ack! Damnit, leave me alone', and _then_ go back to what they were doing."

Fantasia snorted. "Well that's no fun, definitely think I'll be hanging around somewhere else that doesn't have a lot of _them_ around. Sheesh, a girl could die of boredom with reactions like that!" She grinned over at Morin. "You're definitely an exception to that rule."

Morin blushed inexplicably and said, "No, I'm not old enough to be jaded yet."

"Ever _so_ much more fun to be had that way," Fantasia replied with a broad grin, then 'oohs!' as she spotted a boat still at dock and looking ready to head back across. She bounded in that direction, the nigh boundless energy gained from the night nowhere near being expended yet.

Thorn chuckled and trotted after her, Morin jogging along behind. "I could just, you know, teleport us wherever we're going..." Morin said as he caught up to her at the docks.

Just about to accost the boatman for a trip across, Fantasia turned back to look at Morin, expression twisting in thought at the difference between spending a long time hiking allllll the way back the way they'd come and taking a shortcut...

"Well why didn't you _say_ so?" she asked, grinning as she hopped over next to him and slipped an arm through his, batting her eyes at him coyly and grinning, "Could you, pleeeeeease?"

Morin blushed some more and stammered, "Uh... well... where exactly are we... going... then?"

Fantasia looked around him with a grin to Thorn. "What was the name of that podunk village out in the middle of nowhere? Sure beats the heck out of walking all the way back."

Thorn said, "I don't remember."

Morin smirked faintly and said, "Well, I suppose one podunk village is about the same as the next..."

"Nooooo!" Fantasia replied in mock horror, still holding his arm. "You don't understand! This one was expecting some sort of throw-down in the near future when all the fuzzies would come out of the woodwork. That'd probably be our best chance to get a lead on where Shenzel's gotten off to, and I _really_ need to get this message to her. Hey!" she said, remembering, "You know all about this 'Bluuuuuue Star!' business, Thorn, maybe you could give him an idea of where it was a couple days ago in relation to the village and we can figure it out from there? If nothing else, there's gotta be something on my laptop that can figure out some basic direction from it."

Thorn shrugged absently. "It was near the portal to Torn Elkandu..."

Morin said, "What fuzzies?"

"Oh just the usual," Fantasia replied with bright reassurance, though she really had no idea whether the werewolves of this world were anything like the Garou or not... she guessed they had to be something like em, or a CoG wouldn't have hung around for long. "You know," she added, "Big hulking werewolves, looking for a bite to eat and a party."

"Er... oh... are you sure they're friendly?" Morin said nervously.

"Trust me!" Fantasia replied brightly. "They're just like big overgrown puppies. Feed em, pet em, tickle their paws, and they're just happy as can be." At least the lupus she'd known were that way, she giggled softly.

"Well, if you say so."

He put his hands together and an inky blackness emerged from them, coalescing into a pool, then a spinning black disc in front of them. The disc cleared and opened, showing through it a nearby village in the trees.

Fantasia drew away, leaning forward to look through the portal and then over at Thorn. "That look like the right place to you? Seems right to me, but then I've only passed through there once."

Thorn said, "Looks about right to me, I guess." She shrugged and headed through the portal.

"Onward, Alice!" Fantasia shrugged, and stepped through after Thorn, not like they would be in any real trouble if it happened to be the wrong place anyway.

Morin stepped through last, then when they were on the other side, he turned and moved his hand up, the rift in reality sealing shut behind them with a wink.

"Now _that_ is a neat trick," Fantasia remarked and ducked close to lick him lightly on the cheek with a grin. "Thanks again. Lot better than slogging through the woods and waiting for something to leap out and bite us."

Morin blushed again and swayed a bit. "Hey, what's the fun in being a Void Mage if you can't do neat little tricks?" He grinned.

"That's the spirit," Fantasia replied encouragingly, then tilts her head in the direction of the nearest cluster of buildings. "Let's take a look around, see if anyone has heard anything about the wayward CoG and whether we might expect to see her ambling in at the next... Starsdawn, was it?" She looked at Thorn on that one, the term one that she hadn't got an answer on before.

"I'll tell you when Starsdawn is if you tell me what a See-oh-Gee is."

Fantasia giggled. "Oh dear, there I go again... CoG, Children of Gaia, that's the tribe of Garou that Shazmar said Shenzel'd come out of. Ya gotta admit that it's a lot less of a mouthful than the whole tribe name."

"I don't see how that's such a very long name to say regardless," Thorn said. "Unlike, say, gnomish surnames, for example. Like, 'Sidan Donttouchthatyoumoronargh'."

Fantasia blinked at that, then snickered. "Well no, it's not anything nearly as bad as that, but when you tend to keep on the move there's an advantage to keeping things as short as possible. Besides, I'm lazy."

"Anyway. Yeah. Starsdawn is once every thirty-two days at the first of every 'month'. The next Starsdawn should be in around nine days, I believe."

"Nine days. Stuck nowhere. Meh," Fantasia muttered. "Well this should be interesting. Really."

"Well, unless you'd care to go hunt them down yourself..."

"Wellllll," Fantasia considered that, looking between the two of them with a hopeful expression. "Either of you any good at tracking in the woods? I'm fine and dandy in the city, a private detective's got nothing on me with a little niggling about with the local 'net, but the woods? Ummm..."

Thorn smirked faintly and turned into a panther. "Do you have to ask?"

Fantasia grinned. "Well in that case, may as well go and take a look around. If we don't find anything in a few days, we can always head back and keep an eye out for when the party's supposed to kick off."

Thorn chuckled and loped off into the forest. "Yeah... Perhaps someone might know where she's gotten off to, at any rate..."

"Worth a look around," Fantasia agreed, remaining in the hybrid form as she trotted after Thorn, not having any particularly nifty abilities which would allow communication in the quicker and more agile animal breed.

Morin strolled along after them, attempting to meanwhile avoid running into too many trees, tripping over roots, or stumbling into worfberry bushes. Elvish blood or no, he was clearly not one who has spent overmuch time in forests.

Fantasia hadn't spent all that much time in the woods either, other than the occasional foray to the caern that the Don had demanded they do fairly often. She was familiar with the concepts of avoiding stationary objects and keeping a close eye out for things that might decide to chase her, though, out of long practice. She followed after Thorn quietly.


	8. Wolves in the Bush

About thirty yards up, the brush shook a bit. Thorn sniffed around in the air, ears perking up as she led them off through the trees, glancing over in that direction.

Fantasia's ears perked at the unnatural motion of the foliage, edging around a tree cautiously as she continued to head in that direction and motioned back to Morin to be quiet, careful.

Morin said quietly, "Are you _sure_ they're friendly?"

She faintly smelled something akin to wet fur.

"No," Fantasia replied quietly, grinning faintly in the darkness and not doing a particularly good job of being encouraging. She did turn to continue in that direction, though, looking for the source of movement.

Thorn's tail swished as she headed over that way as well. Morin shrugged and continued on behind them nervously.

She spotted an anomaly in the natural pattern of the woods for a split second before it moved away quickly.

"Oh for the love of Gaia," Fantasia muttered and stepped out into the open, hands held wide in clear display that she was carrying no obvious weapons. "Hello?" she called out, though she'd be feeling pretty foolish if a rabbit jumped across the trail.

She heard brush being pushed aside, moving into the distance.

Thorn smirked faintly and swift as a panther (well, obviously, since she _was_ a panther) she darted off after the movement.

Fantasia smirked and shook her head, loping off after Thorn. Leave it to the local wildlife to either be skittish or inclined toward practical jokes.

Thorn noticed a wide area of brown cross-hatched material on the path ahead. Thorn stopped, sniffing the air and peering about, ears twitching.

Fantasia skidded to a halt nearby as the panther stopped, looking around alertly. "What is it, Thorn?" she asked quietly.

"Observant, aren't we?" a gruff voice called from the bush.

"I'm not exactly stupid," Thorn replied. Morin came up behind her, peering about in confusion.

"Oh, now that was a dirty little trick, or at least an attempt at one," Fantasia muttered, glancing aside and catching sight of the odd patterning in the dimness, it didn't sound like she was particularly disapproving.

"A wit too..." the voice chuckled, then became harsh. "Why have you intruded upon our territory?"

"I'm Thorn, and I've lived here quite enough centuries to not fall for a little trick like that," she said, smirking. "We are, however, presently searching for the werewolves in this area. To talk."

Fantasia looked in the direction of the voice and nodded brightly in silent confirmation, tucking her hands behind her back to keep them from doing anything foolish.

"And if you found these werewolves, what would you want to talk to them about?" asked the voice.

Morin glanced about nervously, hoping nothing decided to jump out and eat him.

Thorn said, "We are searching for an old friend of mine, by the name of Shenzel Tirtas. We were hoping to discover information that might lead to her present location."

Fantasia merely did her best to look inoffensive and agreeable, familiar with the territorialistic nature of the Garou and not particularly wanting to find herself and her companions with a pack of horked off fuzzies chasing after them. It might be fun, but Morin probably wouldn't be up to the chase. Heh.

"Shenzel..." the voice was quiet for a moment. "What business do you have with her? And who are you, to have a friend of us?"

"I told you. My name is Thorn," she said, the tip of her tail twitching a bit in annoyance.

"I don't mean your _name_," the voice snarled. "What business have you had with Shenzel to merit the word 'friend' from her?"

"I've very likely known her for longer than you've been alive," Thorn retorted.

Fantasia smirked, ears flickering faintly at the hint of Thorn's emotion. "I've got a message for her, from someone who helped make this world what it was, pal. Besides, I've spent enough time around the Garou and the Children of Gaia to be considered friends."

Morin stood back quietly pretending that he wasn't there and trying to be invisible.

They could feel eyes looking them over. "Very well. I will summon Shenzel and let her decide for herself." After a moment, a low, eerie howl pierced the air.

Thorn's ears twitched as she looked at the foliage patiently in the direction where the voice had been coming from.

A woman walked through the underbrush and into view.

Fantasia turned and looked in the direction of the new arrival, ears perking faintly in curiosity. Not that she was going to trust it, any more than they trusted _her_. Hehe.

"Well?" the woman asked. "What is it you need, coming on to our territory?" A thin, older looking woman, greying hair with big brown eyes. She didn't look too pleased.

Thorn narrowed her eyes at the woman, whiskers twitching. "Who are you?" she wondered.

Fantasia smirked, shaking her head at Thorn's reaction. "So much for a trick question or two. Who's the next contestant, Bob?"

"I'm Shenzel. Who else?"

"Shenzel who? Shenzel Smith?" Thorn replied. "I'm sure 'Whisper' is a common enough name on Daresa, but this is not the one whom I seek."

She looked behind her. "They know." From out of the surrounding foliage, about half a dozen crinos form stood up. Another crinos, one with a jagged strip of white fur across its left side, hopped from a nearby tree.

Fantasia's tail twitched as the werewolves made their presences known in the most unsubtle of fashions, preparing for the instinctive response to the fight or flight question.

"So, you do know our Shenzel," the woman spoke.

Thorn's tail twitched warily and said, "Yes, I do."

"Who are your friends, shifter?"

Morin looked about ready to piss his pants at the moment, trembling.

"I'm Fantasia," she replied lightly. "The name given to me on passing my Rite of Passage among the Glass Walkers."

Thorn said, "And the terrified half-elf is Morin." She smirked over in his general direction.

The woman smirked at the elf, but noted the other shifter. "You are with kindred spirits...well most of you." she said as her face shifts to a smile, with a smirk at the elf. "Come, follow us to our den."

Thorn gave a nod and went to follow them. Morin looked as though he really would rather not but went along anyway.

Fantasia looked over at Thorn in question, then shrugged and ambled over to rest a reassuring hand on Morin's shoulder. "See? Told you they were friendly. Sorta." she chuckled and followed quietly.

"I'm still not fully convinced they're not going to eat me," Morin said quietly.

The pack walked in a circle around the three, the woman and the one with the white stripe of fur behind them.

Fantasia grinned lightly and quietly replied as they walk, "No worries, you can get out of harm's way before they can do anything. Me and Thorn, on the other hand, will get the fun of making a run through dark woods without a fire hydrant in sight to distract em."

"We don't eat sapiens." The familiar voice was now linked to the one with the lightning-esque scar. "We just...play with them."

"Oh... yeah... that's... um... really reassuring... yep..." Morin said.

A big, pearly white flash of teeth that might be considered a smile was all he got in return.

"It's part of the Litany," Fantasia reassured, then ruined it a bit by adding. "Providing some parts of that got passed along by Shenzel along the way anyway. Sounds like it did, which is good, but beware the tricksters of the bunch, we're the crazy ones. Heh."

Thorn chuckled softly and inquired in Fantasia's general direction, "Litany?"

"A set of the rules that Gaia set out for the Garou tribes as a whole," Fantasia replied. "Though some of it got changed over time and others just kinda got paid lip-service to. That one's pretty well enforced though, leads to Bad Things happening to those who ignore it."

"What's that, then?"

Fantasia smirked. "Remember that bit of business I told you about having to take care of? It was someone who had a taste for eating people, just one thing that added to his corruption. Thou shalt not eat the flesh of humans, is the letter of the law, and if you do you're bound to end up falling out of grace... except the sharks. Weird." She shrugged.

"Sharks. Right," Morin said nervously.

Thorn chuckled. "I don't see why one would care to eat humans, anyway."

"I hear you tend to be tough and salty," a voice in the pack said.

"Don't ask me," Fantasia replied, smirking at the commentary. "The idea's pretty repulsive, but I guess the Rokea don't have a problem with it since man's the other white meat to them. Like I said, very weird."

Morin commented, "I'll be even saltier after you make me piss myself."

Fantasia refrained from commenting upon the natural habitat of the grue for Morin's sake, poor guy was clearly shaken enough as it was without having to deal with a bit of a joke.

They walked and walked and walked and made a few turns here and there. They arrived. Some rudimentary tents were cast around a central fire pit, and a cave entrance was right near it as well.

"Well," Fantasia remarked, looking around. "At least it's a bit more civilized than your average Red Talon caern." She shrugged lightly, remaining near the other two for now.

Thorn said, "What's a Red Talon? Aside from the obvious anyway."

"Your...hairless companion may stay in one of the tents," the woman said with a look of slight distaste towards the elf. "You two are welcome to join me in my cave, should you so desire."

"Ummm," Fantasia thought about that a second and smirked. "They're the tribe that's the least likely to invite anyone not born as a wolf anywhere near them. They also have a tendency to sorta ignore the whole thing against killing humans angle. They don't get along well with the Glass Walkers, overall."

Morin seemed a bit nervous about being left alone, and wavered, glancing from one spot to another.

"And I think I'll stick with Morin," Fantasia offered to Thorn, keeping her voice low. "The poor guy's about to snap, and I don't think leaving him to the tender mercies of these guys would do him much good."

"I'm surprised they're not all Black Spiral," the woman commented with a sneer.

Thorn nodded to her and turned to head inside.

Fantasia's fur ruffled at the mention of the BSDs, and her ears laid flat as she looked toward the speaker. Her whiskers twitched as she considered it for a second, and logic as well as prudence kicked in as she stepped over to grab Morin's arm. "C'mon."

Morin didn't need to be told twice, letting her drag him off to wherever. Morin murmured to her, "I have no idea what that was about."

Fantasia muttered something under her breath in a language distinctly different than she'd been speaking before, and heads for one of the tents. "Don't sweat it," she added reassuringly. "Nothing to worry about. Let Thorn see what she can find out and we'll just keep a low profile."

"What's a Black..." he trailed off, peering about as they enter a tent.

"Black Spiral Dancer," Fantasia replied quietly, walking over to settle on the ground to one side. "They were a tribe of Garou once, then they went totally buggy insane and walked into the madness of the Wyrm. They're... bad. Really, really bad."

"Wait a minute, slow down," he said, taking a seat next to her. "What Wyrm?"

The tent was the most basic possible. No mats to sleep on, no pots, no nothing. Just a few hides stitched together and held up by hewn oak.

Fantasia chuckled lightly, drawing her knees up and curling her arms around them. "The Wyrm's part of the fabric of the universe back there, it's the force of entropy personified and has a bunch of spirits to do its work. Really important stuff, but somewhere along the way it went crazy and corrupted, and the Spiral in the name refers to a maze that they found which led into its mind and shattered theirs."

"How does one personify the physical law of timelines splitting when different actions are taken, preventing paradox?"

"Huh?" Fantasia looked at him in confusion. "I understand the words, but the way you strung them together makes no sense to me. Sounds like a question for a Theurge, they're the mystical healer types."

Morin looked confused as well. "Entropy. Timelines... When someone goes back in time, they can't change the past because of entropy. A new timeline will just be split off instead. Entropy prevents paradox from occurring in all but the rarest of situations."

"Sounds like you're talking about one of the odder aspects of it," Fantasia replied. "Timelines splitting off isn't something that we've ever heard of happening back home, and the entropy I was talking about was just... decay. The Wyld created, the Weaver shapes, and the Wyrm destroys. That's the way of the Triat."

Morin scrunched up his face in confusion and said, "If timelines don't split off, then you must have problems with paradox..."

"Only if the boats involved are too big and the docks too close together," Fantasia replied with a grin, then snickered and shrugged. "Seriously though, I've never heard of any kind of problems with paradoxes other than in bad TV shows."

Morin smirked. "I don't mean like in bad TV shows. Nobody spontaneously ceases to exist, even if they do go back in time and kill their grandfather. No, not like that."

Fantasia rocked back a bit, thinking it through. "There's not as much magic involved back there as there is here, that's where the confusion comes in, I think. A lot of the stuff you're taking for granted as being known, is utterly beyond anything relevant or recognized there... just like some thing's I've said are irrelevant here."

Morin said, "I'm not even sure if we're even talking about the same thing now, heh. Paradox only occurs if something that physically cannot happen happens anyway somehow. This is generally only relevant when Chaos Magic is involved, because of entropy... even Time Magic won't _normally_ cause it.."

Fantasia grins and shrugs, "Don't look at me, I got lost when I shoulda taken that left at Albuquerque. Sounded like you headed off on a magic-related tangent, though, and I really don't know... it's not that magic's not as common there, I suppose, it's just that what's known and accepted about it are very different than here."

Morin said, "It's not really so much magic as the nature of reality... And Chaos Magic is very rare, in its purest form, outside of the Pattern Realm... I don't think many Elkandu know too much about that place."

"The mages might know," Fantasia replied. "They apparently deal a lot more with the raw magic that's available there than the Garou or the kitsune. Though anything magic-related is, by definition, very foxy." She grinned.

Morin said, "The Pattern Realm is a weird, weird place... Apparently there's a 'pattern aura' over the place that is a form of extensive Void Magic that hinders any from of change."

"Hmm," Fantasia replied. "Sounds like someplace to check in on sometime, then. No telling what might be found there."

* * *

"We have not seen nor heard from Shenzel for a long time... why do you seek her?" the woman said as she sat on a stump, gesturing to another for Thorn.

Thorn said, "We are on a quest to seek her out to deliver a message from Shazmar himself."

"The sun itself speaks to her? What does it say?"

Thorn did not want to say that Shazmar just said to say hi, instead saying, "My message is to be delivered only to Shenzel herself."

"Understandable...if I knew where she has gone, I surely would tell you. I assume the message is quite urgent, as well. It isn't often the gods decide to chat."

"How long ago did she leave here, and in what direction was she going?" Thorn asked.

"All I can tell you is that Shenzel went to the mountains, and it was quite some time ago."

Thorn gave a nod. "Then we shall head into the mountains and search there, and ask those who dwell there then if they have heard sign of her passing."

"If you require aid, take our scout. He is quick and stealthy, and can call forth the power of storms from his body."

Thorn gave a nod and said, "I do not require aid, but I will not shirk it given freely."

"You may stay the night in our den if you need the rest. If you are hungry, I'm sure our hunters can find something for you to sate yourselves upon."

Thorn gave a nod and said, "Thank you, but we awoke not an hour ago and do not require rest at this time."

She nodded. "Very well. May your journey go swiftly."

Thorn nodded again and headed out to rejoin the others again.


	9. Changing Breeds

Fantasia was a bit surprised to see Thorn returning so quickly, but wasn't adverse to getting back on the road again after the short break. It would give Morin a chance to calm down a bit at least, even if they _had_ acquired a lurking and silent for now shadow to accompany them. She wasn't quite so reluctant about that, glad to have the furry tank with them in the event that things went wrong... and they usually did in her experience.

As they moved out, Thorn said, "I do not know where exactly Shenzel went or even if she is still there, but the mountains will be the place to start. Perhaps we will find more information there..."

"Sooo," Fantasia stalled, re-settling the backpack at her shoulders as they trudged along. "What's in the mountains? More werewolves, or something else entirely?" She couldn't make any assumptions, any more than at home since there were a bunch of other different kinds of shapeshifters besides just wolves.

"Some werewolves. Orcs, goblins, trolls. Other kinds of shapeshifters."

"And I'm betting that the trolls here are nothing like the fae," Fantasia smirked. "Lemme guess, they're more like the gamer-geek variety with lots of sharp teeth and claws? Orcs and goblins at least don't have any 'good' relations that I've seen anywhere."

"Eight to twelve feet tall, more teeth than brain cells, smells like a swamp and looks like a swamp."

"Yup, about what I expected." Fantasia nodded, not seeming all that concerned by the idea really. "What about the other shapeshifters? We've seen the wolves already, and there's obviously cats... mrowr! Hehe, so what else might we see along the way?" The question she really had was what Shenzel was looking for out this way, but she doubted asking it would clear anything up. They'd have to see for themselves.

"Eh, all sorts of things... bears, ravens, cats, snakes..."

"Any bulls or pigs?" Fantasia asked curiously, then grinned. "There used to be some of those until the War of Rage, and my personal theory is that the lupus got a little too energetic in their craving for bacon cheeseburgers." She shivered. "Not a joke to make around Ripjaw, though, he was craaaaanky!"

"Not that I've ever heard of," Thorn said.

"Ah," Fantasia replied, somewhat more subdued at the brief reply, but shrugged it off as she slung the backpack off her shoulders and starts rummaging through it. Finding what she was looking for, a spiral notepad and a pen, she shouldered the pack again and tore a sheet from the pad to start folding it in a complex design.

Thorn glanced over at her, wondering what she was up to now. "At least... not on Daresa."

Fantasia replied with a distracted nod, plucking the loose edges off the paper. A few more folds and the design was complete, looking like nothing so much as a paper bug... which changed appearance as she stares at it for a minute. Faint light glowed from the creature's bulbous back end, and thin wings unfolded to take it aloft and hovered above her. Morin eyes the thing warily and curiously.

Thorn waved it casually and went on to say, "I've heard of some very random things on other Elkandu worlds. Not to mention the world my father was supposed to be from."

"Oh yeah," Fantasia replied, flipping the pad open and uncapping the pen lightly with her teeth. "Lots of strange shapeshifters out there, though I think the spiders had to be the creepiest." She looked up at her bug light and it drifted a little closer, illuminating the paper a bit better, and she hummed quietly to herself as she started writing.

"There was once a guy named Ragen, back in the Age of Rogue Winds, who spontaneously acquired the ability to transform into a duck for no apparent reason."

Fantasia looked over at Thorn, grinning. "Guess he should have learned to duck a bit better then, huh? Sounds like some bizarre curse or something, though Howard would probably disagree."

"I suppose there are worse things to be. For instance, I would hate to have been a wereslug."

"Sounds like that wasn't a particularly good time to be hanging around this neck of the woods," Fantasia chuckled lightly. "There's enough weird that goes with being a shapeshifter without having to deal with any extra stuff... though I still think the spiders are the worst. Ew."

"Heh. What's weird about it?" Thorn wondered.

Morin strolled along quietly. Some clouds were starting to cover the stars.

"Okay," Fantasia replied, flipping the pad shut for the moment and slipping the pen into the confines of the spiral. "So you're an... Ananasi, that's what they're called. Anyway, you're going around all gothy and dark, and then decide to hit your animal breed form... and drop into a bajillion little spiders all moving in a horde. It's creepy, I tellya."

Thorn blinked for a moment. "Okay, I'll admit that's a bit odd. I would generally expect them to turn into a really big tarantula or something," Thorn said.

Morin added, "Like Shelob?"

Thorn said, "Who?"

"They have a form that does that, too," Fantasia replied, then grinned over at Morin. "Shelob? Crazy, whacked-out spider thing that tried to eat Frodo, right? Loved those movies."

Morin said, "Yeah, that one..."

Thorn said, "I still don't get the bunch of little spiders thing. How do they communicate and stay together? Telepathy?"

"Yick, don't ask me," Fantasia shuddered visibly even in the dim light. "Probably has something to do with them all being part of the same critter, though they at least don't seem to have the same fondness for blood that the original does."

"Blood?" Thorn said, making a bit of a face.

Fantasia nod-nodded, "Yeah, they apparently use it a lot like the leeches do, to fuel some of their Gifts and innate abilities. Dunno, what little I'd heard of them lately seemed to indicate they were either headed for Wyrm corruption or extinction, either way amounting to about the same thing."

"I thought that was only vampires and Blood Mages who had a thing for blood..." Thorn said.

"Apparently not," Fantasia replied, making a face. "And don't _even_ ask about some of the rumors that were floating around about how they reproduced. That's enough to make you look at horror movies for the rest of your life, shrug, and go 'that's pretty tame'."

"Creepy," Thorn said.

Morin blanched a bit and said, "Uh, yeah..."

"Told ya," Fantasia stuck her tongue out, then grinned and shrugged. "Thankfully there didn't seem to be all that many of em left around, pretty rare to run across one. Sharks, on the other hand, seemed to be popping out of the water wherever ya looked but even if they _were_ scary as all get-out you knew where you were standing with them... preferably outside their jaws. Hehe."

"Eh... Well... There _are_ weresharks on Daresa," Thorn said. "But they don't come this far north. They mostly hang around the Quiet Sea and the southern ocean."

"They're apparently all over back home," Fantasia replied. "Blues, black-tips, makos, tigers, even saw one great white..." Her ears flicked at the memory. "Now _there_ was a reason for the phrase 'gonna need a bigger boat' if I ever saw one. Nice enough guy, though, if a bit strange. They just keep keeping on til something kills em, from what he said."

"I think I'll prefer to stick to dry land, myself," Thorn said.

"There's something to be said for swimming, like the beachwear" Fantasia quipped, grinning. "Overall though, yeah, I don't think that the deep blue was exactly intended for us to be dipping around in, at least unless we want to be used as bait."

"They can keep it, I don't want it," Thorn commented. "Now, the Palistelli of Lezaria, they're even worse."

"Paliwhatsis?" Fantasia asked, reaching up to snag the little light-bug and cup it in her hands, peering in as it continued to glow in accordance with its design.

"Palistelli," Thorn said, "Sharkmen. The name means 'Rulers of the Sea'. They're extremely violent and territorial. They don't care a whit about other species and don't want anyone near their territory. Which happens to encompass a large archipelago in western Lezaria."

"Oh, heh," Fantasia replied, dragging the bug out by its wings and then dispelling whatever it was that animated it as she crumpled it into a small ball of paper. "The Rokea are generally like that, but some of the species of em are more curious than others like the blues, seems Salty was kinda an aberration where they were concerned."

"The Daresan weresharks are at least content to leave well enough alone if they're left alone," Thorn said.

"Sounds a lot more reasonable to me," Fantasia nodded, dropping the ball into a pocket absently. "Too much fighting and killing going around as it is, wherever you go, nice change of pace not having to duck behind, up, or under a tree at every turn."


	10. Mountain Adventure

Where we left them, Thorn, Fantasia, Morin, and a werewolf who had not yet specified his name, were off traveling through the mountains of Daresa.

They'd already left the place and were going through the mountains now. There are a lot of trees on Daresa. At least the western part of the main continent. The eastern side was fairly barren, around the Dead Rock Desert.

The scout shifted back into human shape. A wiry built guy of about six foot with long brown hair. Curiously, there happens to be a jagged blond streak running through _it_ as well.

"Don't want to make your elf any more close to panic than he is." He smirked.

"Oh he'll be fine," Fantasia replied with a quiet laugh, picking up immediately on who the intended target was. "Just a little shy and out of his element is all."

Morin didn't look especially reassured by the creature being a man rather than a wolf, but managed to avoid pissing himself as they trekked along through the trees.

The werewolf hopped over a large rock. "Element..." he said quietly, and the air suddenly smells of ozone. "...indeed."

Thorn chuckled softly and preferred to remain a panther as they travel, prowling through the foliage with complete unconcern.

Fantasia wasn't bothered by the werewolf, having grown up around them all her life anyway, and just chuckled softly to herself. There always seemed to be _some_ reason they were pissing on trees and fluffing out.

The mountain had a bit of a path worn in to it in this particular region, and the going wasn't too straining.

"Ahhhh... glorious Gaia," the scout said, taking a deep breath as he walked. "Such a fine creation we have the blessing to live upon."

"You know, 'the mountains' is really a fairly vague direction..." Thorn observed. "She could be anywhere in miles and miles of territory."

Trekking all over the back of beyond was never really her strong suit, and Fantasia just smirked in the direction of the werewolf. Seemed that Shenzel'd been about a bit of evangelism along the way... the Jehovah's Witness of the CoGs? The mind boggled.

The scout turned around. "True, but her scent still might be on the wind if we are nearby."

"If you say," Thorn said.

Morin muttered, "I'm not really equipped or in shape for a mountain hike..."

"The trappings of a soft city life I imagine," the scout said with a snort.

"Too bad I don't have anything of hers," Fantasia mused, then shrugged. "Make things a lot easier, but where's the fun in that? Heh."

Thorn replied, "And I'm no canine, but still."

Morin rolled his eyes at the wolf-man's comment and said, "I'll have you know that I once... um... planted rutabagas."

The scout laughed. "Ever been on a hunt, elf?"

"Well, some people have tried to eat me before... but I don't think that counts."

Fantasia smirked at the wolf, then yawned very pointedly at him. "Have you? Not one of the sissy ones in the woods, but the real-time and hardcore ones in the urban sprawl? That's where real skill comes in, rather than barking at trees and sniffing each others' tails."

A bolt of electricity arced up the scouts body, and his eyes glowed white. "Watch yourself. You may be our guests, but insults do not fall lightly within the clan."

Morin eeped quietly and hopped a couple stepped away from him.

"And you expect that someone's going to back down when you insult her friends? I don't think so, wolfboy." Fantasia replied, smirking still. "You want respect? Give and earn it, pal."

"Hmph! He cannot even shift!" The scout turned to face forward again, hair growing from his arms and legs. He wasn't quite going crinos, but he was annoyed and mutters to himself as he walked and periodically sniffed the air.

Thorn rolled her eyes a bit and said firmly, "Enough posturing. We have a quest to undertake."

Fantasia chuckled lightly. "You think that's all there is to be proud of, furball? Most of my work in the past has been done without a flash of anything but skin." She glanced over at Thorn and grinned. "And you're right, but hey, can't let them go off and huffy without saying anything, now can I? Well, suppose I could, but I'd get my Ragabash membership card revoked." Fantasia giggled.

Morin looked about ready to dart up the nearest tree. As they continued on up through the forest, the trees began to thin somewhat and the ground became more rocky.

A low snarl was heard from the front, but nothing else. He sniffed the air and paused, cocking his head slightly. "Hmm."

Fantasia ambled over near Morin, leaning close to whisper, "Relax..." before licking his cheek lightly and skipping ahead.

Cliffs and valleys ranged ahead of them, peaks spiring up into the sky in the distance. Daresa was a young world, and the mountains were strong and stark, untouched by the ravages of time.

"Something is in the air, although I'm not certain it is Shenzel," the werewolf said.

As they continued on, they spotted a skull on the end of a stick jutting out of the ground, tied with a bunch of dirty feathers.

With a shrug, Fantasia shifted down to the smaller and fleeter pure fox form. Not great for communication but definitely better for testing the air and keeping an eye out. Particularly good when they start running across things like that. Ew. Ick. Blech.

Thorn took one glance at the thing and snorted, "Orcs."

Lupus snarled and shifted into crinos quickly.

Morin stuttered, "Th-that's an elf skull..."

Returning to the hybrid form, Fantasia snorted lightly. "Thinking with your claws again? Whatever these are, there's probably more of them than us. Bigger is _not_ better when stealth is needed."

"I hope you people are either good with magics or physically fit enough to defend yourselves," the werewolf said.

Fantasia rolled her eyes, muttering to herself as she dug through the old Ragabash bag of tricks. "Defending, clawing, yadayadayada, it's all about the wolfosterone, always. Ugh. Anyway... Blur of the Milky Eye. Yeah, that'll do it."

Morin took a deep breath and put his hands together, shadows encompassing his form. "They might be able to snap my bones like a twig... but they will never get close enough to touch me."

Lupus turned to face Fantasia. "Woman, what form do you think I was in whilst I stalked you in the woods?"

"Ugly as always?" Fantasia asked sweetly, then vanished suddenly from sight.

"I am nowhere near the biggest of our pack, but I _am_ the quietest. Not that extreme stealth is needed to get past orcs..." He bared his teeth at the last known location of the kitsune and turned back forward.

Thorn was just continuing loping by without much concern to the orc totem.

Fantasia loved this one, she really did, moving over near Morin to add a bit of the mojo to his passage as well. A faint blur seemed to distort the world as she touched his arm lightly, that was all he can tell though he could see her now. To the others, he simply vanished.

"C'mon," she said quietly, "They wanna be silly, they can, but may as well play it smart on this end." She turned to continue along after Thorn.

They saw more skulls on poles as they walked through the area, and even came into sight of some of the smelly creatures, but passed by uninhibited and apparently unseen or unheard.

That one really was one of Fantasia's favorites, the senses just not _seeing_ or otherwise detecting what was there. Didn't work against vidcams, but who the hell had one of those out here? She imagined a loudspeaker crackling out 'Attention Orkmart shoppers, today's special...' Hmph.

Finally, they moved out of sight of the skull totems, and thankfully upwind of the orc village. That was one little potential problem avoided, Fantasia mused with a smirk, sticking her tongue out in the direction of the village as they passed it by. Better by far than having to get bloody. Whereas their scout wanted to either shred or fry each of them, but he was smart enough to understand discretion.

They circled the rim of a low, green valley. The stars were covered by thick clouds now, and there was a hint of rain in the air.

"Ugh," Fantasia muttered, looking up at the clouds distastefully, letting the illusion slip away in shreds from around them, "Wet fur is _not_ a good smell."

"Do you wish to shelter for the night?" Lupus asked.

Thorn snorted softly and said, "What's a little rain?"

Morin said, "But I thought cats hated water..."

"It's not just about a little rain," Fantasia replied, sticking her tongue out in Thorn's direction this time. "It's the smell of wet woof hair, you ever smell a wet dog? Worst. Smell. Ever."

"Would you prefer to go back to the orcs and hide in their caves?" Thorn asked.

"You wish to shelter," the scout said, looking with a flat face at the fox.

Fantasia smirked at their 'native guide', then returned to reply to Thorn, "No, not exactly, but not looking forward to a nice, chilling rain. Ever seen a fox sniffle and sneeze? Pitiful sight." She didn't really care either way, more looking for something to entertain on the way.

Thorn sighed. "Oh, fine. Let's head down into that valley and seek out the caves. They run all through these mountains, and not all of them are inhabited by orcs or worse."

Fantasia grinned at the sigh, dark eyes glinting with amusement. "It was a joke, Thorn. You need to loosen up a bit too." She chuckled, digging the pad of paper out of her pocket again to begin folding a scrap of it.

The scout shifted to full wolf and trotted along, sniffing a good thirty feet from cave entrances. Didn't want to get overpowered by Odeur d' Orc.

There was, indeed, a tunnel winding into the mountains nearby, and no sign of orc habitation and no scent of any creatures, hostile or otherwise, within. The scout yipped quietly and trotted around outside of it.

Thorn looked over and said, "That looks good." A few droplets of water were beginning to fall, and one landed on Fantasia's nose.

After they were all inside, the scout stood out in the rain and looked in. One would swear he was smiling.

Fantasia shrugged, murmuring to herself. "What's that, Lassie? Timmy fell down the old well again? Admit it, you pushed him!" She flipped out the design she'd been folding to examine the miniature umbrella, then headed inside.

After getting sopping wet, the wolf happily trotted inside and right up to the kitsune, upon which he promptly and quite vigorously shook himself dry.

Morin ducked inside shortly after Thorn. He gave the wet canine a wide berth.

Fantasia just looked at the wolf and smirked. "I've seen better." She moved to one side of the cave and sat on the ground, unshipping her pack and sifting through it.

He shifted back into human form and wrung his hair out. "I don't particularly care."

Morin said, "I hope there aren't any Balrogs down here."

"Got that in common," Fantasia grinned, digging out a polished case and setting it aside for the moment as she dragged out a towel to brush out her whiskers. "Balrogs? Not unless there's fire and shadow. Any volcanos around?"

Thorn replied, "Yep."

Morin didn't sound much encouraged, but he was mainly joking anyway.

"Well that's just a tad bit creepy," Fantasia remarked, stuffing the towel back into the pack. "Good thing I have something old Geezdalf didn't." She snagged the case again and opened it, checking the contents carefully.

The scout sat down against a wall and closed his eyes, zoning out.

"Fashion sense?" Morin suggested.

Fantasia looked over and giggled. "Well, there's that too." She snapped the case closed after taking a holster and gun out of it, then stuffed it back into her pack before rising and re-donning it.

Thorn said, "Hey, no napping on the job, this tunnel heads further in and we can get a few good miles out of it and get us closer to where she went."

"Well, you seem to know where to go..." the scout said, stretching.

"Who said anything about napping?" Fantasia grinned, going through several contortions to settle the holster under one arm, then pats it with loving familiarity. "Just thought I'd get ready for orcs and the other nasty things in the deep, dark parts of the world."

Thorn said, "I _hope_ there aren't any orcs down here. Or Balrogs. Whatever those are."

Thorn loped down the tunnel, which was fairly wide and winds down deep into the mountains.

"They're a bit nastier than grues," Fantasia replied. "Tall, dark, and ugly, fire and smoke all over the place. Bad risk for renting to."

"You mean demons?" Thorn asked.

"Mmyup." Fantasia nodded in bright affirmation. "Think they'd fit the bill."

"Oh, cheerful," Thorn said. "But no, I don't know of a great many demons on Daresa at least. Not since the entrance to the Abyss got moved away from here again."

The scout followed in silence, listening to the talk of the unnatural.

"Oh, well that's just a cheerful thought." Fantasia snickered, then shrugged. "Hey, what's a little trip down into the mines of Moria without a chance of a horde of orcs crawling like spiders down the pillars and big, buff, and ugly coming through to ruin everyone's day?"

Morin said, "And no bridges in sight to stand on top of and says 'You shall not pass!'."

"No, definitely no bridges," Fantasia replied. "I don't have a stick, and the only one I'd think would be gruff enough to stay back and bluff would be old lightning fuzzy over there."

"Such derisive terms of a nature we both share, fox," Lupus said.

It was rather dark in the tunnel. Thorn didn't seem to be having any difficulty in the lack of light, and Morin didn't seem _too_ inconvenienced.

Lupus made Fantasia's hair stand on end. As her fur poofed out to leave a black button nose and eyes all that showed through the snow white, Fantasia looked over at the wolf and grinned brightly.

"Don't tempt a Ragabash, bucko," Fantasia said. "Shenzel never warned you about us? We got things to do, so I'm playing nice for now."

"Hmph," Lupus said. "You can dish them out but you can't take them?"

Fantasia just grinned and turned away without another word, letting him make what conclusion he can from it.

Morin said, "Er... Pardon my ignorance, but what exactly is a 'Ragabash'?"

"Tricksters," Fantasia replied lightly. "Monkey-wrenchers of the worst kind, and an auspice the Ahrouns always thought twice about crossing. Sure, you got claws and teeth... what happens when they humiliate you in front of the whole tribe? Hehe."

Morin blinked. "Oookay... now what's an auspice? And what's an Ahroun?"

"Oy." Fantasia grinned, rolling her eyes. "Sorry, I keep forgetting that I'm not running with wise guys anymore. A shapeshifter's Auspice is determined by what phase of the moon they're born under. Ragabash is new, Theurge is quarter, Philodox is half, Galliard is three-quarter, and Ahroun is full. That tends to change temperaments and inclinations too. Tricksters, healers and mystics, peace-keeper, bard, and warrior. Lot more to it than that, but..." Fantasia shrugged.

"So what exactly does that mean, then, for shapeshifters from a planet with no moons?" Morin asks in confusion, glancing to Thorn and Lupus.

"Notta clue," Fantasia replied, grinning brightly. "Guess that means they get to be snarly, grouchy piles of fluff."

"Gaia decides for us since there are no moons here," Lupus replied. "It is made certain that all Auspices have members."

"Oh, oh!" Fantasia added. "That also applies _only_ to the Garou, since the other shapeshifters have other means of determining things, like night/day cycles, times of season, yadayadayada."

Thorn said, "I certainly have no idea."

There was the faint sound of water that could be heard from further down the caverns.

"Yes, we are Gaia's chosen." Lupus smirked at Fantasia. Of course, emphasizing _we_ as Garou.

Thorn rolled her eyes some more. He was definitely not winning any friends in that direction.

Fantasia chuckled. "Small correction there... Her warriors. Each breed had their task, whether healers for the bears, eyes for the cats, ravens... well, they talk a lot."

Hell, Lupus wasn't worried about friends ever since Fantasia decided to make it a point to infuriate him.

The sound of water grew louder. Whatever was ahead was no small stream.

"Hmm," Fantasia muttered, ears perking forward at the increasing sound of water rushing. "Anyone got a bigger boat?"

Morin said, "I'm afraid I left my yacht at home."

The scout walked ahead, looking for any sort of passage.

"Tsk, and I'm fresh out of rafts," Fantasia replied. "Left my last one in the land of the lost."

They came to a deep gorge with a huge rushing river blocking progress further down this tunnel fairly effectively. There were no handy stone bridges or staircases across either.

"Any magics to assist us across?" the scout asked.

Fantasia went near the edge and looks down, idly toeing a loose rock to go clattering allllllll the way to land with a splash at the bottom. "Riiiiight," she said, looking at the rest of them. "Any ideas on getting across?"

Morin said, "Don't look at me."

Thorn smirked, "Guess that leaves me, then..."

Fantasia grinned and shrugged. "Oh, I've an idea or two, but nothing anyone would probably like much."

Thorn walked up to the edge of the cliff and vines proceeded to grow from the solid rock, stretching across the gap and entwining themselves with similar vines growing from the other side.

"That works," the scout said, testing a foot on it.

Fantasia shifted down to the smaller form, waiting for the thinnest appearance of solidity to emerge in her estimation, then moving to scurry quickly across. No fear of heights or anything else, not for this one.

The minute they were all fully on the bridge, however, the vines snapped under their weight. The scout jogged on it, leaping about three-fourths of the way across.

Well, Fantasia mused to herself as she expects to experience a very Wile E. Coyote-esque moment shortly, last time she'd trust her four or so pounds to a vine bridge. Her paws scrabbled for purchase madly for a moment, then surrendered to the inevitable and curled into a ball as she dropped.

Thorn tried to shift into elf form to grab hold of the vine desperately, but slipped away. Then she clenched her teeth and more vines shoot out growing rapidly beneath them and forming a net that caught the four of them mere feet above the surface of the churning, icy waters.

Fantasia bounced lightly in the net, blinking at the sudden turn of fortune and uncurling to settle small paws carefully on the mesh. Morin went flaccid in the net and proceeded to piss himself. Lupus slipped on his leap attempt and fell into the net.

Thorn relaxed into the net once she realized it was solid and secure and let out a sigh of relief. "That wasn't quite intended."

Fantasia bounced again as heavier bodies impacted on the net, then carefully moved toward one of the walls and looked up and up and up. Ugh.

Thorn remained laying there so as to distribute her weight across the net, and stares up. "Now, how are we going to get up there again?"

The scouts shrugged. "Don't think my magics are too useful above spraying water, unless you all want to be electrocuted."

Brushing up against the very edge of the net against the wall, Fantasia carefully shifted and laughed, the glum expressions of her companions priceless. "Well we climb, of course," she said with a grin, "What else do we do? Don't see any helicopters hovering around to drop a line."

Morin said, "Oh Gods, I think my life just passed before my eyes."

"Yeah, ain't it great?" Fantasia giggled.

He was currently too busy freaking out to offer any constructive suggestions.

Thorn said, "Suppose I could try a vine rope, or a ladder or something..."

The scout concentrated, shifting his hands and feet to clawed versions, and started up the wall.

Fantasia grinned and followed after the wolfman, not particularly inclined to trusting to plants anymore for the moment. She had rope, all she had to do was get up _there_.

Vine ropes snaked along the rock face.

Fantasia quickly slipped and fell back into the net as she failed to make purchase against the cliff and small rocks broke off.

"Erf," Fantasia muttered.

Lupus got some ways up and then fell in such a manner that wound him up with a vine between the legs and his toes in the water. The net jolted and shuddered but held for the moment.

"MMmmmfff..." Lupus's eyes were squinted shut.

Thorn managed a vine rope leading back up to the top again. Thorn nudged Morin toward the rope. "Come on, Morin. Start climbing up, I'll make sure it holds... or try at any rate."

Morin, terrified, grabbed the vine and started climbing up, clinging to it for dear life. Some ways up, it proceeded to snap and dropped him back into the net. This time the net couldn't take the hit and snapped loose...

Lupus made a grab for the vine! He managed to grab hold of something still anchored down and avoided being swept away in the current.

Thorn wasn't so lucky, though. Morin managed to grab onto one of the vines and swept Fantasia under an arm protectively.

Lupus tried like hell to climb. This time, whether through sheer iron will or having found a better climbing route, Lupus managed to climb up the rock face.

Fantasia bleched, shivering at the chill of the water, and held on for dear life.

He shifted to crinos to give himself a bit more reach, and stretched down for Morin. "Give me your hand!"

Thorn managed to snag a hold of a rock in the icy current and avoided being swept further downstream.

With his free hand (that is, the one not holding onto Fantasia), Morin tried to reach out and take his hand, but the current was too much for him. Thorn managed to reach out a hand and snagged him.

"Damnit all..." Lupus muttered.

Thorn tried to get a hold on things again and some more vines growing, but failed to concentrate on it and her hand slipped free of the rock.

Lupus broke one of the vines on the rocks, pulled it clear and attempted to extend it down to the beleaguered crew.

"GAIA!" Lupus bellowed, hoping for a little divine favor.

As they were swept along in the current, a hole in reality was torn open in front of them and they flew through, along with a good amount of icy water before it got closed again. They were back on top of the cliff again, on the other side of the river.

Lupus noticed some water falling on his head from above, and crawled back up onto terra firma.

Morin released Fantasia and Thorn and lay there panting. At least his soiled trousers were no longer noticeable given the sodden nature of the rest of his clothing.

Teeth-chattering, Fantasia turned her head up to look at Morin. "Remember... before... portal. Thanks." She curled up against him just for warmth, looking horribly bedraggled at the moment.

Lupus shook himself dry, reverted to human form and knelt, thanking Gaia for her aid.

Morin shivered and said, "Hate to burst your bubble... but that was me, not Gaia..."

Fantasia chuckled raggedly, shivering, but said nothing at the moment. Better a power you knew than a cranky goddess any day.

Lupus ignored Morin.


	11. A Quick Jaunt for Meat

Thorn and Morin were collapsed in resting, exhausted and shivering after their experience. Sadly, there were no Fire Mages in the vicinity.

Fantasia muttered something about Tarzan being a lie, that Disney clearly had stunt doubles involved when they did all the vine-swinging scenes, and dug through her pack for the towel she'd had earlier as well as something else.

"Hey, Thorn," she said, teeth chattering not quite so badly now. "You got anything that can summon up some nice wood or something? Little tree maybe?" She flicked open the zippo she'd taken out and struck the flint.

Thorn grunted softly and raised a hand, and the rock nearby cracked and broke as a wiry tree grew up from it, its branches snaking out across the roof.

"That'll work," Fantasia said.

She muttered to herself a bit as she dragged at the treeling to pull it out of its hiding. She remembered that green wood was smoky as could be, but she'd live with a little smoke if that meant she could be warm and dry again.

She snickered lightly. "Shoulda stayed out in the rain."

The tree was actually perfectly formed for firewood, producing very little smoke and blazing up in a moment. Morin was mumbling deliriously over at the side. Fantasia tossed the lighter back into her pack and dragged the towel over to drape over Morin's head, ruffling and drying his hair with a faint grin.

"C'mon hero, over to the fire and warm up." She left the towel with him and crawled back to the fireside.

Morin didn't move, fairly out of it and still shivering uncomfortably. Thorn was at least in better condition, curling up next to the fire. Fantasia looked over at him, shrugged, and moved back to see what she could do about getting him closer to the heat.

"Dry and warm in no time," Fantasia cooed softly, trying to get him up and moving before he catches more than a cold. Poor guy, he just really wasn't cut out for this sort of thing, she mused.

Morin was apparently the wussiest Void Mage ever born. He coughed and sputtered a bit and spits up some water.

"Sorry I got you into this," Fantasia said softly, just sitting there for a minute and using the towel to dry him out a bit, mostly talking to herself as she did so. "Hey, seemed like a good idea at the time, a bit of fun and a trip through the great outdoors. No problem, right? Riiiight. They always said I had a horrible planning sense."

Thorn muttered, "Okay... why were we crossing the river again, anyway?"

Fantasia snorted lightly, glancing over at her with a smirk. "Well, someone had the idea of going deeper into this tunnel, presumably to lead us somewhere useful... though to be fair we wouldn't have been in here in the first place if I hadn't said something about the rain." She chuckled and sighed, looking down at the unkempt and still damp state of her fur, then sniffed, her muzzle wrinkling. "Ew, right, that's why. Wet dog."

"Well, so much for staying dry," Thorn mumbled. "I don't even remember where these caves go..."

"That's what the fire's for," Fantasia grinned, then looked at Morin. "If I can ever get him over there anyway. Don't make me do something embarrassing to get you moving, hear me?" she scolded him with mock ferocity, though more than a little worried about his continued lack of response. She wasn't a Theurge or even an EMT, she had no clue what might send someone into shock.

Thorn got up and helped drag him over toward the fire. Thorn muttered to herself softly and curled up again by the fire, warming her hands. Fantasia took a moment to arrange him more comfortably, then curled up behind him and draped an arm over to share what little warmth she'd built up.

Her muzzle poked up over the curve of his neck, dark eyes dancing with the reflected light of the fire as she looked over to Thorn. "You don't know where this goes either? Why'd we come down this way then?"

Thorn said, "I don't remember, I haven't been this way for a long time, but there's something down here, and it should certainly come out somewhere where we're going."

Fantasia's nose twitched in curiosity, and she rested her muzzle lightly in the curve she'd peeked beyond with a sigh. "Worth taking a look," she replied. "If we can get past that silly river anyway. Maybe get Morin awake enough to take us over, then get him to go back home before he gets into any more trouble."

Thorn peered about a bit and oriented herself, and said, "Actually, I think we _are_ on the other side of the river."

Fantasia blinked, shifting her eyes to look around without moving otherwise beyond the flicker of sharp ears. "Are we?" she asked, not really sure, as one side looked pretty much like the other as far as she could tell right now.

"I think so..." Thorn peered over the edge of the gorge and tried to make out which direction the water was going. "It looks like it, I think..." She went back over to the fire.

"Well that's good at least," Fantasia replied softly. "At least we can rest, dry out and get warm again, then head deeper into the heart of Moria." She chuckled lightly and smirked, eyes flicking to the nearby face as he'd be the only one who'd get the reference here anyway. Drat the luck.

Morin grumbled slowly, "I'd... prefer... the Balrog."

Fantasia flashed a grin, sharp teeth glittering in the firelight. "True enough," she said, "At least we'd only have to run faster than the slowest in the party to get away from it." She chuckled softly, then simply settled as comfortably as she could to soak up the comforting heat of the fire. Definitely have to do something, she knew.

"I'm.. not that fast," Morin said slowly. "But then... I'd just open a portal in front of it to Sasherey."

"Or one to take you away rather than tumbling into the Grand Canyon," Fantasia replied with a snort. "Think we're definitely gonna have to get you out of here, you're worse out in the woods than I am, and that's saying a _lot_."

"We aren't... in the woods..." Morin muttered, coughing again.

"Yeah well," Fantasia retorted lightly. "We ain't out of the woods yet, either. At least Gandork knew the way through the mines, we're working on a wish, a hope, and a bit of luck. Hmm, come to think of it, that's better odds than I usually get."

Thorn said, "Ah, how hard could it be, we just keep going until it takes us someplace, right?"

"In theory," Fantasia replied quietly, seeming near on the verge of dozing as her eyelids were half-drawn. "Lots of caves don't have more than one way out, and those that do tend to be in places even more inaccessible than the way we came in. So... maybe." She remembered heading south and playing tag with some of the guys in the Lurray Caverns. Fun stuff, but far away now.

Morin managed to sit up and curl closer to the fire, muttering miserably. "I'm never leaving the city, ever again," he mumbled.

Thorn snickered and said, "Who ever heard of an elf that didn't like the wilderness?"

Fantasia chuckled, sprawling lazily out and settling into a curled half-circle around him, all the better to soak up more heat from the fire and dry out the last vestiges of damp fur.

"Legs he's not, that's for sure," Fantasia remarked. "But nothing wrong with liking cities more than the dark and dreadful. Lots more to do there."

Thorn snickered softly and absently tossed another stick at the fire.

Morin said, "What about an elf that doesn't mind burning trees?"

Thorn said, "I'm practical."

"Nah," Fantasia said, folding her arms and resting her muzzle on them to gaze into the mesmerizing depths of the fire. "Elf-types are always setting up fires, they just do it in practical and elegant ways. Much better than just chopping down a tree and hacking it to bits with a 'Trog SMASH!' before dumping it in the fire pit. Oh yeah, then tossing half a roast beast on a spit to cook." She smirked, the idea actually sounding kinda good.

"I wouldn't mind a roast beast at the moment," Thorn commented.

Morin agreed quietly.

Fantasia groaned theatrically, burrowing her muzzle into the nest of her arms and her ears laying flat. "I knew I shouldn't say that," she replied, muffled. "Now I'm a bit cold _and_ hungry. Where's a fast food joint when ya need one? Rrrgh."

Thorn proceeded to grow a worfberry bush on the other side of the tunnel. It didn't manage very many berries, though.

"Blech," Fantasia muttered, looking out at the faint hint of movement and scent to see the shrub. "I'd take a whole cow, slaughter it, and stick it on a spit to roast right now. Sounds great. But even the candy I have stashed away doesn't sound tempting, to say nothing about berries." She sighed, tongue curling to wet the tip of her nose.

"Sorry, I'm afraid I can't grow steak trees," Thorn said.

Morin did help himself to the handful of berries, though.

"Mmm," Fantasia muttered dreamily. "No steak trees? How bout a nice prime rib one? Ooh! Or maybe barbecue ribs? Hell, ribs of any kind would be great! But if that's not to taste, maybe a shrimp or crab weed?" She trailed off, the tip of her tail twitching this way and that as she imagined the possibilities.

"Sorry, 'fraid not," Thorn said. She silently wishes she'd thought to bring along some rations or something at least.

"Drat," Fantasia muttered, grinning as she looks across the fire at Thorn, "And me without an emergency pizza delivery number on hand!"

She silently chided herself for being so careless, it'd been too long since she'd spent any real amount of time outside the city and she'd forgotten the little necessities that tended to be important out there... like, oh, small things like food. Not all _that_ hungry yet, mind you, but still. Hrmph.

Morin was looking considerably better now at least, and he said, "I could just open a portal to a pizza parlor..."

Fantasia's ears perked at that, eyes darting to stare at him. "True..." she murmured thoughtfully, then quirked a brow as she asked. "But could you get us back here? Tempting as it might be don't wanna leave the snoozing fluffball alone too long. He might get eaten by a grue!" She snickered.

"I could keep it open long enough for that I think..." Morin said.

Fantasia uncurled and leapt to her feet, stretching lazily before grinning. "Okay, let's do it then." A flicker of something else was in the back of her mind, but she didn't examine it too closely just yet.

Morin stood and opened a portal, blackness swirling and coalescing again to a distant location. "There we go," he says. It's difficult to tell just where it leads, however, as it's dark on the other side, but there's trees and the sounds of traffic and what might be a streetlight nearby.

Thorn said, "I'll stay here."

"I'll be back in a flash," Fantasia said, looking over at Thorn with a flickered grin, "With food!"

She turned her attention to the portal, glancing to Morin for a moment before shrugging and walking through. Morin stepped through as well, at least rather drier than he was previously. He continued to hold the portal open and peered about. It was definitely an Earth-like city. There were bright illuminated signs advertising lodging, food, gasoline, and other accommodations. They were also in the middle of the street.

Morin got distracted nearly getting hit by a car and the portal fizzled shut. "Ack! Watch where you're going you idiot!"

Fantasia hopped lightly away from the fast-moving object in reflex, snarling and muttering some rather non-ladylike things under her breath and flipping the driver the bird. "Asshole," he could hear her mutter as she stalked back near, and looked around with shock at the lack of portal. "Ummm, Morin? Where'd the looking glass go?"

Morin momentarily realized that he was standing in the middle of an asphalt strip in which various motor vehicles larger than him were coming toward him, and decided to stand over on the concrete nearby instead. "Lost my concentration. I'll see if I can open one back once we get the food."

Fantasia reached out to drag him onto the sidewalk with a grin, shaking her head, "Whatsa matta? Never been on a busy street before?"

She looked suddenly thoughtful at that and stood on her toe tips to cast about for sight of any of the locals. No telling how they'd react to her _or_ his appearance without a clue.

"I don't even actually know where we _are_," Morin said.

It was night wherever they were, and not a lot of people were out walking about, but a few could be seen coming in and out of hotels and restaurants and going to cars.

"When in Rome," Fantasia muttered, shifting to the homid form that was no larger or more diminutive than the hybrid, and smoothed out the jumpsuit she was wearing with a distasteful glare at the wrinkles. "Bah. Okay, so first things first, let's find some food and then scoot once we figure out where we are."

Along the street, signs advertised such fine high-class establishments as "Happy Burger", "Pete's Grill", and "Papa Pepper's Perfect Pizza Place".

Fantasia grinned broadly, looking around and rubbing her hands together delightedly at the prospect. "Oh no, no pizza," she said. "I want beef, or at least what passes for it here, and I hope they pay homage to O-Mighty Dolla, or they're gonna be sooooooooorry! Hehe."

"What deity is it you speak of?" Morin wondered, glancing at the restaurants along the road.

Fantasia chuckled and grabbed his arm, tugging him along in the direction of the grill. "Nobody you'd recognize," she replied brightly. "But if they give any hassle about taking cash or credit, we'll have to trick or treat for our supper."

Morin let himself get dragged along, somewhat confused at the situation. The restaurant in question was sparsely occupied at the moment, and a clock on the far wall proclaimed it to be 11:06 PM. A young man in an apron was behind the cash register, underneath a menu listing meals and prices, noted clearly in dollars.

"Oh joy, oh rapture," Fantasia said, casting an eye on the menu as she dug through her pack for her customary stash. Heavy on the meat, probably suit all of them just fine, even ol' grumpy, and she set out to order amply with that in mind.

The guy at the counter didn't seem to notice or particularly care about Morin's pointy ears. "How can I help you folks on this fine evening?" he said in their general direction.

"I'd say make me one with everything," Fantasia replied with deliberately bland expression, "But you're not a zen master _or_ a hot dog vendor, so! Let's see, I'd like..." she set to rattling off a list that should suit all of them quite well, and maybe something greasy and chewy for the next day.

The guy at the counter stared at them as if wondering how the two of them, who weren't exactly the fattest people he has ever seen, intended to eat all that.

Fantasia just grinned at the guy, pretty much figuring what he was thinking, but not going to get into it just now... even if she did bounce once at the thought of the _fun_ she could have with it. "What's the total?" she asked simply instead.

"One-hundred and ninety-four dollars and sixty-three cents," he replied diligently.

"Sure thing," Fantasia replied, digging out a couple one-hundred dollar notes... hey, she wasn't a Glass Walker for nothin'! She giggled at the thought and passed them over to the cashier, the change from cold and hungry to warm, comfortable, and nearly fed bringing all sorts of cheer back.

He looked over the money briefly, put it in the cash register, and counted out five dollars and thirty-seven cents of change, and handed it back. It looked around the same at first glance, but upon closer inspection it would be clear there were different pictures and slogans on the money...

Fantasia was quick enough on the uptake on that kind of detailing, and quietly tucked the change away to wait patiently for the food to arrive... and get out of there before anyone notices! The Monkey King sure seemed to be out in force lately, eesh.

After some minutes, a couple trays full of hot, steaming steaks and various other meat products that appeared to have been the byproduct of an entire slaughtered cow and maybe a couple chickens were brought out to them.

The sight was enough to start the inner carnivore to drooling, and Fantasia hastily started packing away and storing things as well as pushing things off for Morin to carry back. "Thanksomuchaveagreatday, gottagobye!" she rattled off, edging Morin toward the door and heading that way herself.

Morin stumbled out carrying an armful of food and managed to avoid dropping anything along the way. Once outside, he tried to open another portal back to where they were, and slightly distracted by the smell of food it took him a couple tried to manage it, once accidentally opening it into molten lava and closing it again _really_ quickly. But on the third try he did get it open to where they were before.

Lupus woke up to feel a warm fire burning in a small tree near the river gorge and the smell of large quantities of freshly cooked meat. Curled up, the first thing to move on him was his nose. It twitched a bit, and one eye opened slowly.

Fantasia wasn't paying much attention to the comings and goings of the portal and what lay beyond it, more tuned to the idea of being chased and restraining laughter at the moment. As soon as she saw the right one open, though, she stepped through and proclaimed brightly, "Dinner is served!" before breaking into an uncontrollable fit of giggling.

Morin put down his trays of meat and Thorn's mouth waters. Thorn proceeded to grab the nearest plate and a knife and fork and had at it. Lupus half-crawled over to the meat, thumped down near it and grabbed a piece, tearing in to it.

Morin grabbed a plate and started eating also, and said, "I haven't the slightest idea where we were. Although I don't imagine they'll be happy about us running off with their plates and silverware."

Fantasia arrayed what she was carrying, setting it on the ground and giggling and chortling to herself as she shifted back to hybrid form and plopped down nearby. Her mirth continued unabated, though perhaps a bit dimmed by the delight at what she chose from the tray.

Thorn said, "Mmm, this is good. Excellent choice."

Lupus munched away. "Certainly is. Where'd you get it from?"

"Pete's Grill on... whatever planet we were on," Morin replied.

"Oh, just a little restaurant at the end of the universe," Fantasia quipped, snickering to herself as she took another bite and mmmed in delight. Okay, so that didn't go exactly as she might have planned, but at least they took care of the food thing.

"What planet _were_ we on, anyway?" Morin wondered. "Strange place..."

"Who cares, meat is meat," the scout said, grabbing another large chunk as he finished the first one.

"Oh, looked a lot like where I came from," Fantasia replied. "Right down to the blacktop and rude drivers, but not quite the same... heh, almost feel sorry for the kid when he has to go through the till and count at the end of his shift."

"Why's that?" Morin wondered.

Apparently, the change he gave her was stamped with the words, "United States of Devenia".

"Umm," Fantasia giggled again, taking another bite, chewing, and swallowing before answering. "Well, the money I handed off to him looked a lot alike, but it ain't gonna fly at any of their banks. His boss is probably gonna be pretty horked off. Probably better avoid there any time in the near future," she added with a snicker.

"I probably couldn't get back there if I tried anyway..." Morin admitted.

Their guide quickly devoured the chunk he grabbed, and snatched another.

"No worries, hero," Fantasia looked over at him with a grin. "Doubt we're going to need to be heading back that way again any time soon anyway. Hope not. Heh."

Thorn ate some more, grabbing another piece of meat as well.

"So where will we go from here?" Morin wondered. "Further into the tunnels and hope they come out somewhere?"

"Unless you want to try getting back over the river of DOOM! Trademarked by LucasArts, I'm sure," Fantasia replied, still a bit energetic after the trip. "Then we're gonna have to go on and trust to our native guide."

"I think we should just keep heading in and see where it leads..." Thorn said.

"You certainly are energetic," Lupus said.

Fantasia grinned and nodded. "Always fun to get away with a bit of a trick, even when it's not one you planned on. Anyway, we got some food and plenty to keep us going for a day or two more, so all to the good if you decide to boldly lead where no... umm, well, that doesn't work so well." She shrugged. "Whatever way works for me."

The scout burped and stood up, reorienting himself with the cavern. They were on the other side of the river. He saw the odd sight of a burning tree and a worfberry bush growing down here.

"Assuming the werewolf doesn't eat it all first," Morin said.

Fantasia snapped off a silly salute and semi-attentive stance where she was sitting. "Ve are ready to follow, mon capitan!" and then faded into following mode as things are gathered up and prepared to move out.


	12. Skunk Mountain

Thorn shifted back into panther form and headed off down the tunnel, leading deeper into the caverns.

Fantasia hummed lightly to herself, settling her pack more comfortably and taking off after the only guide she suspected had more intelligence than Gaia gave a spark plug. Or a fire plug, for that matter.

As Thorn almost drowned them, she must be thinking of Lupus. Anyway. The cave was dark. Morin headed along close behind Fantasia, not at all staring at her butt or anything.

The dark didn't bother Fantasia at all, for reasons as yet unmentioned and unspecified which have more to do with her affiliations of old than her shapeshifter nature. Feeling the weight of eyes she glanced back, smirking for a moment and then continuing onward with a flirt of her tail.

Morin giggled faintly and blushed, and glad that it was too dark for anyone to see him blushing, he hoped at least. The tunnel came to a fork, and Thorn confidently took the left tunnel, which sloped gently upward.

Up was a positive thing, Fantasia mused, definitely a good direction to be taking when you were underground... provided they didn't run across that volcano Thorn had mentioned before. That'd be about her luck lately.

As if on cue, the ground started to shake violently and bits of rock started to break off from the ceiling.

"Are you sure one of you isn't cursed?" Lupus asked, increasing his gait up the incline.

Fantasia jumped about a foot at the sudden rumbling, though natural dexterity serving well to maintain her balance at least. She could make a remark about the cursed thing on a number of levels, but snapped her muzzle shut on anything short of a light, nervous giggle.

Thorn broke into a run, Morin taking the clue and doing likewise. Fortunately, they made it to the surface without the tunnel collapsing in on them, to find themselves overlooking an active volcano.

"No, I am not fully certain of that," Thorn commented.

"Oh yeah, greeeeeat," Fantasia muttered, looking out. "Let's just hope that the local volcano god isn't particularly hungry at the moment and let's make like a tree."

Morin peered out over the countryside for half a moment and circled his hand in the air, a portal opening in front of them. He gestured to his companions to go first. The view on the other side was of a mountain looking like it was still on Daresa and not too far away, but at least several miles away as there were no volcanoes in the background erupting in it.

Fantasia grinned brightly over at him, the idea a hell of a lot better than looking for some rickety path along the cauldron while trying to avoid getting thrown off by the rumbling. Okay, so there'd be a good point to that too in the right circumstances, but she just hopped readily through the portal without a word.

Thorn didn't argue, doing likewise leaping into the portal and coming out, indeed, on a mountaintop several miles south of their present location.

"Perhaps the spirits were angry that we decided to tread around inside." Lupus shrugged and hopped through.

Morin went through last and sealed the portal shut behind them as the volcano started erupting. To the north, a plume of dark smoke marred the colored stars in the distance.

"Or maybe they just had a sudden craving for hot dogs," Fantasia smirked, glancing back and waiting for Morin to step through before turning to look at the distant eruption. "Much prettier when you're not at ground zero," she remarked.

"Quite," Morin agreed unsteadily. The distant mountain glowed fiery red with lava that thankfully didn't come anywhere near them.

Fantasia grinned and darted close enough to lick Morin lightly on the cheek, ducking around him and returning to her original spot as she turns to Thorn. "So where now, oh fearless and luckless leader?" she asked brightly.

"Well, let's see, hmm, where are we..." Thorn mused, looking around. "Ah... We appear to be on Skunk Mountain. She wouldn't be here. Well, unless she didn't mind the smell and wanted to get away from it all."

"Skunk... Mountain..." Fantasia replied, muzzle tilting and whiskers twitching as she sniffed at the air with caution.

Lupus scrunched his nose.

There didn't appear to be any skunks in the immediate vicinity, though. Thorn said, "Let's go," and randomly headed off to the south.

"Sounds good to me," Fantasia agreed readily, nodding sharply, the idea of a mountain peppered with skunks having alllllll sorts of potential, but not something she was looking to take advantage of just now. She did, however, mark it on a mental map for later consideration.

After some walking, they wandered into a small village of crude huts in the middle of the forest on a plateau on the mountain.

"Mountainside rustic, how quaint," Fantasia remarked offhandedly, personally agreeing with Morin at the moment as to the benefits of city life as a whole.

The villagers looked at them as they appeared, rather startled. Well, at least they looked human.

Human was good, sometimes, though the lupus back home were perfectly capable of looking human while pulling the stupidest stunts imaginable to man or Gaia. At least they didn't look immediately hostile, she preferred that right before she was _leaving_ a town not when entering.

At least up until they all panicked, turn into giant skunks, and start spraying the group.

Fantasia blinked as the villagers started to shift, then got a suddenly panic-stricken expression at the array of tail-turning in their direction. She yelped frantically and dove for cover as a small white fluffball, any cover at all! YIPE!

"Ghah!" Lupus snorted as he backed away. "Such territorialism!"

Thorn and Morin were likewise not hesitant to get the hell out of the immediate vicinity, perfectly content to leave the wereskunks the hell alone. Fantasia and Thorn managed to avoid being too badly sprayed, Morin wasn't quite so lucky, and Lupus seemed to get drenched with it.

"Oh, this is _not_ going to bode well with the elders..." Lupus snarled as he shifted into crinos and began indiscriminately firing off bursts of electricity into the mass.

Fantasia streaked from the small patch of cover she'd found, a white blur that moved quickly away from the skunks. Gah! No wonder they'd been paranoid! It sounded like a joke and they were the punch line: a human and three carnivores walk into a camp of wereskunks...

The wereskunks seemed disinclined to pursue, content that the intruders were getting out of their place and leaving them alone.

Morin stumbled and coughed a bit and commented, "Skunk Mountain, you say..."

Lupus did not succeed in calming down the skunks, who continued panicking and freaking out.

Fantasia hacked and sneezed at the reek of musk, delicately pointed ears laid flat against her skull as she looked around and took count of their numbers... oh hell.

Lupus wasn't trying to calm them, he was trying to obliterate at least one or two. There was the smell of smouldering skunk as some of his strikes hit home.

Morin glanced back, hearing the lightning, and said, "What is that fool werewolf doing?"

Fantasia shifted quickly back to hybrid form and dug out the pad of paper, quickly folding a few sheets as she darted back in that direction with a snarl as her only reply to Morin's question. The paper airplanes were thrown into the air, gaining a life of their own as she ran back with a small squadron for company.

"He better appreciate this," she muttered to herself, sending the darting, harmless craft ahead of her to harry and distract the skunks... hopefully enough that they'd just _run_ rather than deal with the idiot!

"Ugh," Thorn muttered, preferring to put some distance between herself and the skunk village.

They were miniature versions of World War II planes, Corsairs and Zeros, and they dove and swooped around spewing 'gunfire' and making all sorts of noise. Harmless, but definitely distracting.

Lupus got the idea and moved away, dripping with Eau d' Skunk.

The skunks scattered into their huts and left them alone to make their escape. Thorn resisted the compulsive urge to wash herself.

"Those _bastards_!" Lupus snarled as he stomped over, making nasty _shlup shlup_ noises as he walked.

Fantasia snarled silently at the werewolf as he went past, the magic dropping away from the planes and leaving the paper to flutter lifelessly to the ground. She turned and darted back in the direction of Morin and Thorn, muttering hostile, un-ladylike things under her breath.

Thorn commented, "Skunk Mountain. Would you have preferred the volcano?"

Lupus decided he'd do something nice and shook off a decent distance away from everyone else, then reverted into human form.

Fantasia moved upwind of the reeking werewolf, casting a final baleful glare at him before the hilarity of the situation became unbearable and she dropped to the ground in a fit of laughter. She could only hope that no one had gotten really hurt back there, it wasn't like they'd been hostile or anything. Sheesh.

Lupus, being a werewolf, leaned more toward the "Maim first, ask questions later" mindset.

Morin said, "I have this urge to strip off my clothing and burn it, then peel off my skin, but I do not believe that would be useful."

Fantasia regained her composure shortly, rolling over to rest her muzzle on folded arms, and grinned lightly in Morin's direction. "I dunno, be good for morale, at least with a tomato soup bath." She wasn't going to say anything about what just happened, nope, otherwise she'd probably skin herself a werewolf while he was sleeping.

"I'm sure someone, somewhere, knows a 'remove scent' spell or something..." Morin mused.

Thorn headed off down the slope and into the valley between Skunk Mountain and the next elevatory geological feature.

"Can't help ya there," Fantasia chuckled. "Not my area of expertise, and I drank my last Clamata before heading off on this goofball quest." She pushed herself up and stands, brushing the dirt off her jumpsuit, then headed after Thorn.

Lupus's eyes narrowed and he grumbled all the way down.

There was the sound of rushing water. When the trees thinned out, they saw ahead a wide river with a waterfall pouring down into a pool.

Fantasia made sure to stay as far upwind of the werewolf as she could, crossing from one side of the party to the other as needed.

Looking over at the pool, she grinned at the two most severely affected. "Still fresh enough, maybe a dip will help."

"Thank Gaia. I thought my nose was going to shrivel up," Lupus said, shifting to full wolf and hopping in.

Morin didn't hesitate to take a dip. Thankfully there were no werepiranhas infesting the waters. Thorn did likewise.

Morin stuck his head out of the water and comments, "I thought cats hated water..."

Thorn said, "Hush."

Fantasia returned to homid form, not particularly wanting to spend the day... night... whatever drying out the acres of thick, lush fur, and took a moment to strip out of the jumpsuit before heading in. The suit had taken the brunt, and she rinsed it solidly.

Lupus waded out after clouding his spot with thick, nasty skunk musk, shook himself vigorously, and returned to human form.

Morin peeled off his sodden clothing and swam around in his boxers. He was apparently wearing boxers with hearts on them.

Fantasia smirked, catching the design as she wrung out the jumpsuit and tossed it out onto a rock before sinking to her neck in the water. Get a bit of the sulfuric stench out too, she mused.

Morin's face proceeded to turn the color of his boxer-hearts when he turned around and spotted her. Lupus had been ogling her himself, but noticed Morin's burning cheeks and chuckled to himself.

Fantasia sighed, the chill of the water bringing up a few old aches, and rose, stretching her back languidly before turning for shore to retrieve the jumpsuit. A faint, nearly invisible scar traced the curve of her spine and a fine spiderweb-mesh branched out from it along her shoulders.

Morin continued to stare, but at least he stopped blushing so much, momentarily distracted from her ass.

"Well," Lupus said with a cracked grin, "_I'm_ feeling better."

"Well, that stunk," Fantasia remarked, either oblivious or paying no heed for the moment, and drawing the jumpsuit back on. She glanced over toward their recently acquired guide. "Think before leaping next time, okay? Who knows what else may have been around with the luck we've had lately. None of Gaia's kids should throw themselves away, y'know?"

Morin climbed out of the water after a moment, collected his discarded clothing and rinsed it out a bit, sniffed it to make sure it didn't smell too badly, and went to put it back on.

"They started it!" Lupus fumed.

Fantasia grinned. "Maybe so, but that doesn't mean that _every_ problem has to be approached with claw and fang. Just be more careful, alright?"

Thorn said, "What do you say we just go find Shenzel..."

Fantasia chuckled softly, shaking her head as she returned to the hybrid form. "Sounds good to me," she replied, "Hopefully without too many other disasters on the way."

"Let's hope," Lupus said.

Morin agreed wholeheartedly, and added, "And then get out of this damned wilderness!"

"Amen, hero, amen," Fantasia replied fervently.

Lupus curled his lip up at the word "damned" being used to describe his home, but didn't say anything.

Thorn headed off in the opposite direction from Skunk Mountain. Good direction, Fantasia mused silently, settling the pack on her shoulder and heading off after Thorn. A flicker of memory brought a smile to her muzzle suddenly, and with it a quiet melody learned long ago at a distant moot.

They traveled down the valley, around wooded mountains and hills, through the wilderness highlands and thankfully near no wereskunks, orcs, trolls, or giant floating eyeballs that shot deadly laser beams.

The melody shifted as the familiar tune came to an end, Fantasia turning to improvisation to keep the gentle song alive as they crossed the miles. This wasn't so bad, she supposed, but she'd definitely be glad of a nice warm bed and a crowd to fight through in a city.

Then, after what must be several hours of traveling, possibly with breaks to snack on leftover steak if Lupus didn't eat it all and any survived the skunk barrage, they saw ahead on a cliff the form of a wolf outlined by Daresa's brilliant colored stars.

'My God, it's full of stars...' Fantasia mused irreverently, her step coming to a halt as they encounter the unknown wolf.

Wild or shapeshifter, now that was the question... what the hell, been a while since she'd practiced her telemarketing skills. She lifted her muzzle and let loose the plaintive howl of greeting, though Lupus probably found the accent horrid. Normally the Glass Walkers used cellphones for things like this, but they learned the old ways just on the offhand chance.

Lupus flattened his ears at the screeching noise, and started his own low howl, more of a personal greeting.

The wolf cocked its head and looked down over to them, ears flicking. Then it turned and loped along the cliff and disappeared for a moment into the foliage.

Fantasia trailed off, looking aside at Lupus with a smirk, then shrugged. "Wrong number, I guess."

A minute later, the wolf appeared again on the ground nearby, looking over toward them.

Lupus cleared his throat and shifted into full wolf.

Then again, Fantasia chuckled inwardly, the higher pitch of her own voice not well-suited to the Garou language but sufficing to the task even if the wise guys had ribbed her mercilessly on it. "Well hello there," she offered in that language in the direction of their visitor.

Lupus looked at the other wolf, attempting to discern if it _was_ Shenzel. It was indeed.

Shenzel cocked her head oddly at Fantasia, then at her companions, and changed form into that of what appeared to be a young human girl with eyes as blue as the sky on a planet that actually had a sun. "Well, hello yourself."

Fantasia grinned, tilting her muzzle in greeting. "Sorry if we're hanging out in the wrong neck of the woods, just looking for someone named Shenzel." She didn't know, had no clue.

"I'm Shenzel Tirtas," she replied simply.

Lupus shifted back and bowed.

Fantasia expelled a heavy sigh, though the grin remains firmly fixed. "I've been looking _all_ over for you, ever since Torn Elkandu. You have no _idea_ the road I've seen."

"Well, judging by the faint whiff off you folks, I would imagine you came by Skunk Mountain."

"Uh yeah," Fantasia smirked, her muzzle wrinkling at the odor she'd started to get used to until it was mentioned. "Seems they were a little bit jumpy about us wandering into town."

"They tend to do that, yes," Shenzel agreed with a faint smirk.

Fantasia waved it off. "Doesn't matter, just glad to run across you and be done with this infernal trek. I have a message from Shazmar for ya."

"From Shazmar? Really?"

"You think I'd come all the way out here on a lark?" Fantasia smirked, drawing a bit nearer and acting as though she was reaching for the message mentally.

"Well, I can't say I know you very well, as I've just met you and don't even know your name, but I would not rule out the possibility," Shenzel teased gently.

Lupus chuckled and rolled his eyes. "With the way she flits around, I wouldn't be surprised either."

"Errr, right, I'm Fantasia." She laughed, then pointed to the others in turn. "That's Morin, Thorn you know, and the furball... ummm..." She blinked and hmmed. "No clue what his name is, never said."

Morin waved nervously at the girl, trying not to ogle her either.

Lupus smirked at her. "You got by fine without it, didn't you?"

"Well sure," Fantasia retorted. "But kinda rude not to introduce ourselves when asked. Sheesh." She stuck her tongue out at him.

"Now... What was it which Shazmar wished to tell me, that he could not simply come himself?"

"She knows who I am," he said curtly.

"I see you're making plenty of friends as usual, Lupus," Shenzel replied, rolling her eyes.

Fantasia rolled her eyes, turning away from the furball dismissively and returning to the reason that she'd come looking in the first place. "Right, the message." She waved Shenzel closer, stifling a giggle at the name but storing it for later. "Top secret stuff, whisper it to ya..."

"Well, my name _is_ Whisper of the Night," she said with a faint smirk.

Fantasia leaned close as though to whisper, then grinned as she playfully licked Shenzel on the cheek. "Shazmar said to tell ya 'hi!'"

Shenzel chuckled softly. "Really now," she replied coyly.

Fantasia very clearly avoided looking at any of the rest of her party at that, stepping back and nodding brightly, "Yep. Cute kid, that one, as a black button nose."

"You mean we had to nearly get jumped by orcs, drowned, blown up by a volcano and sprayed to the third layer of hell by skunks, so you could tell her 'hi;."

Thorn yawned broadly and stretched. Morin smirked.

Shenzel said to Lupus, "You would be well to calm yourself and know that Shazmar does nothing without purpose, even if that purpose seems inscrutable at the time."

Fantasia grinned, glancing over her shoulder at the werewolf. "Besides, you gonna tell a cute little elf kid no? He'd cry! Tsk, what kind of monster do you take me for anyway? Sheesh. Besides," she added with a light chuckle. "That's what Ragabash do."

Shenzel looked oddly at Fantasia for a moment.

Fantasia caught the look, remembering that Shazmar had said where Shenzel had come from, and the grin broadened by a fraction. "What, too long since you left the tribe and went walkabout? Betcha didn't even hear that Blackie earned himself a name."

Lupus wandered further past the hillside, taking Shenzel's advice. He sat down and communed with Gaia.

Shenzel quirked an eyebrow in puzzlement at her. "What?"

"Uh, oops, sorry, that's a bit disrespectful of the right hoof of your tribe's totem," Fantasia replied with a hint of sheepishness. "The black Unicorn, y'know, Unicorn's defender and warrior? Anyway, there's probably a lot that's happened since you headed out... been out and prowling longer than I've been alive. heh."

"I would imagine so," Shenzel said. "I have been on Daresa ever since Shazmar's feminine aspect shaped this world, through thousands of years that have passed upon its lands. It has been long since I thought much of the world of my birth."

"Maybe I can catch you up a bit," Fantasia replied, then grinned slyly. "If you want to take the word of a Ragabash at face value anyway."

Shenzel smirked faintly and said, "Come, I have a cabin atop the cliff. We can talk over tea."

"Oh bliss, a hint of civilization and not a skunk in sight!" Fantasia replied with honest pleasure, she quickly corralled her companions and chivvied them in that direction, looking forward to the opportunity.

Shenzel led them up to the nice cozy cabin. Lupus followed, but stayed outside to continue his commune when they finally arrived.


	13. Tea in a Cabin

Shenzel's cabin was situated on top of the cliff, nestled a bit into the foliage some ways from the precipice. It was fairly large, with a kitchen, living room, two bedrooms, and it even had a bathroom. It clearly looked as though it were built for more than just one person to dwell in, and was clearly well equipped for entertaining company. There was a warm fire crackling away on the fireplace.

Now _this_ was more like it, Fantasia thought with some approval as they neared and then entered the cabin, the sight reminding her more of the 'rustic' cabins that Dons often had set aside for their own use when they wanted to get away from it all or just have a hideout when things hit the fan.

She wasn't terribly disappointed that Lupus... she snickered at that, the name still amusing the hell out of her.. Well anyway, that he'd decided to stay outside and 'commune with Gaia', hunt down squirrels, or whatever else he decided to do.

"Nice place," she remarked, looking around still as she reverted to homid form, the warmth from the fire a welcome change.

Shenzel grins. Thorn likewise changes to elven form before going inside. Shenzel heads into the kitchen, gesturing to them to follow, and puts on some tea on the stove and pulls a box of tea bags off the top of the fridge. "Help yourself to the fridge if you're hungry, too," she says as she putters about absently.

"S'okay," Fantasia replied brightly, ambling over to a chair and settling into it with a blissful sigh. "We managed to scrounge up some food with the help of our resident teleportation expert, Morin. Could definitely do with a bit of tomato soup or something else if you have it, though," she scrunched her nose at the faint lingering air of skunk they bring in with them. "Sorry 'bout that."

Shenzel chuckled. "I'm afraid that while I know how to cure plenty of things, I can't wave my hand and make foul odors disappear. But there might be something in the pantry." She gestured vaguely to the pantry. "Help yourself if you want."

Fantasia smirked, looking over to Morin, and gestured him firmly in that direction. "You heard the lady," she said. "Thorn and me got the least of it, you got doused pretty well. Just be glad you didn't stand around to duke it out like ol' Lupus out there." She giggled for a moment, still unaccountably amused.

Morin looked confused. "I fail to see how eating tomato soup would help..." He scratched his head.

"Oof," Fantasia replied, then snickered. "You don't eat it, you _bathe_ in it to get rid of skunk spray. Though I suppose a good, solid scrubbing with it would do the trick too. Not sure, I don't generally stay when the skunks go to spray."

"Bathing in tomato soup?" Morin blinked. "Wait, does this somehow involve a magical spell component or something?"

Fantasia smirked and shook her head. "Good grief. I'm a city-bred girl and even _I_ know about that old folk remedy, haven't you ever watched TV?" She chuckled. "Something about the tomato base counteracts the worst of the skunk scent, just slather it on and wait a bit, then rinse it off. It'll do you a world of good, and not a bit of magic required."

"Oh, so it's an alchemical potion that just happens to be similar to tomato soup?" Morin replied.

"Hehe, no Morin," Fantasia replied, grinning. "It's not a potion, not a spell, not even a bit of bippity-boppity-boo, it's just a good, old-fashioned remedy for being sprayed by a skunk. I've seen, or smelled, it do wonders for the occasional careless lupus back home."

Morin looked to the window and said, "I thought he was from _this_ planet..."

Fantasia's grin broadened at that, the source of her own amusement echoed at last. "I have to think that his mom didn't like him very much, or just realized that he was maybe a little too simple to recognize a more complex name. At least we can hope that he doesn't have siblings who think their names are 'Jesus Christ!' and 'Goddammit!'. Hehe."

Shenzel snickered softly and said, "Well, it could be worse. My 'real' name isn't even generally pronounceable by humans. I called myself 'Whisper of the Night' in the language of the elves of Daresa. 'Shenzel' just means literally 'Whisper'."

"I thought that was kinda a strange name for a Child of Gaia," Fantasia replied, turning a curious gaze to her hostess. "Sure, you apparently left a long time ago, before the foxes even came into being or at least around that time, but names haven't changed _quite_ that much. You're a lupus then?"

Shenzel nodded. "Yep. And I was sixteen years old when I ended up in Torn Elkandu by chance..."

"A lupus that's hundreds of years old," Fantasia mused, then grinned. "Well, goes to show that they're not totally hopeless anyway."

"Probably closer to thousands," Shenzel replied. "I have apparently been locked at the age of sixteen due to my brush with Time Magic..."

"A pretty well-preserved sixteen," Fantasia remarked. "But then I've learned to take things with a grain of salt, or an entire mine's worth, when looking at anything around this place. Home was strange enough sometimes, but this place is just weird! All sorts of potential for fun," she finished with a cheshire grin.

"Indeed. The Elkandu call me a 'Soul Mage', or a 'Healer'..." Shenzel mused. "But I don't know how much time has passed on the world of my birth since my coming here, especially considering that time ran differently on Daresa than other worlds in prior times..."

"Dunno," Fantasia replied with a shrug. "What year did you leave it? I could give ya a basic idea from then until when I left, though there's no telling if it's quite the same world I came from... the whole splitting dimensions thing is enough to make my head hurt. Yick."

Shenzel thought for a moment, casting at fleeting memories millennia past, before finally saying. "1847. That was it, I think."

"Oh, not as far back as I would have thought," Fantasia said. "Hell, the Glass Walkers were known as the Iron Riders then rather than the _really_ dusty and old Warders of Man title." She grinned brightly. "Foxes were around before then too, but they were hiding out still in the east and hadn't gotten around to Europe or the US yet."

Shenzel said, "For a time, for each year that passed upon Daresa, a day would pass elsewhere... But that has been no more, since the Planar Wars ended, a hundred and some years ago."

"Sounds like the old fairy stories of the elves and underhill," Fantasia chuckled. "Works great til you step outside and find that everything you knew is dust..." Thinking that through a second, she laughed lightly. "Or the other way around, whatever."

"But then, I didn't know how to return if I were even so inclined to," Shenzel said. "Meeting the Elkandu can certainly change one's perspective on things."

"Pfft," Fantasia retorted. "Only changes your perspective if you weren't already looking at things through a kaleidoscope anyway. They're no more strange than any number of things back home, and have oodles of potential for fun and games for a fleet-footed fox." A grin dawned at that, thinking what her kin as a whole would think of, and do _to_, this place.

"I have to admit that my experience upon my homeworld was likely fairly limited," Shenzel commented.

Fantasia chuckled lightly and shrugged. "No biggie, it's not like I expected to come out this way for a long-winded reminiscence over old times... whadda I look like, a Silver Fang? Nope, just had some business to take care of and then agreed to deliver Shazmar's little message."

"I would be very surprised if Shazmar did not have a hand in your experiences on the journey here, nor further purpose toward such an expedition."

"Ain't that always the way?" Fantasia replied brightly. "Ya work and slave the day away, going through all kinds of hell and back again, only to have some goofball deity spring up and say they meant to do that or that things were supposed to happen that way." She waved dismissively and chuckled. "I don't worry about it, there's always something for me to be doing or people to find who need a bit of a laugh."

"I'm inclined to believe that the very existence of Skunk Mountain is Shazmar's joke on the world."

Fantasia smirked. "Wouldn't surprise me in the least, though some people obviously didn't receive the email notification to pick up their sense of humor at the repair shop." Attacking wereskunks, that ranked up there with going swimming with weresharks!

"I would imagine most people know enough to just avoid them in the first place," Shenzel said. "If possible."

"Oh believe me," Fantasia replied earnestly. "If I'd known about em, and if we hadn't been on the lam from a pissed-off volcano, you can bet I would have avoided them too! I've seen the results of poking at their normal cousins too often."

Shenzel chuckled. She poured them some tea and took a seat, stirring in some sugar into her cup. "There's all sorts of interesting beings around here that I must say I never encountered at home, if they existed at all there."

Fantasia took the tea, adding an unhealthy amount of sugar to it before sipping and savoring its warmth gratefully. Green tea was one thing, it was tradition to drink it straight and bitter, but sugar was her friend. Tradition, pfeh!

"Mm, yeah," Fantasia murmured, curling back up in her seat, hands cupped around the cup. "Skunks are a new one to me, too. All sorts of weirdos back home, but none of those."

"I've seen around here... ravens, porcupines, moose, squirrels, rabbits, weasels, deer, not to mention the cats and and such obviously, and the bears..."

"Bears, bats, ravens, spiders, coyotes, cats of all stripes and without em." Fantasia grinned and listed the homebound ones. "snakes, sharks, wolves, and can't forget the foxes. It's a regular shapeshifter zoo out there, here and elsewhere."

"There's supposed to be dolphins and sharks down in the Quiet Sea, but I must say I don't often go there. I have not, however, seen any werespiders here, or any sort of insects."

"They're rare enough, thankfully," Fantasia chuckled lightly.

The warmth and comfort were conspiring to work out the tension and knots of travel that she'd dealt with longer than she could remember. Odd. She took another absent sip of her tea and mrrs contentedly, somewhat lazily returning to the conversation after a moment as she turned a sharp gaze on Shenzel.

"So, what brought _you_ here anyway?" Fantasia asked.

Thorn and Morin likewise quietly sipped their tea.

Shenzel said, "I don't really know. I was walking through the forest one day, and then I saw something weird and went to take a look, and there was a vortex of light and color, and I woke up in Torn Elkandu..."

"And you never wanted to go back?" Fantasia asked quietly, head tilting at an angle to emphasize the curiosity. "Obviously you know some pretty important people around this place, can't see someone like Shazmar not helping you find your way home if you did."

"I'll admit I was fairly curious about what I had seen here, worlds opened up far beyond what little experience I had actually had at home," she said. "When Kestas shaped Daresa, I hopped through the portal and came along..."

"I can understand that," Fantasia nodded, "There's definitely something to be said about seeing knew places, meeting new faces, and discovering new venues to cause havoc in." She chuckled quietly and drained the remainder of her tea.

"'Causing havoc' wasn't exactly my primary concern," she said with a smirk. "More tea?"

"Yes please," Fantasia nodded energetically and holds out the cup, then grinned. "Causing havoc isn't just a hobby, it's a requirement when you're raised as a Ragabash and only find out later that your really a kitsune. Fun times, fun times indeed. Don't worry though, I don't expect to be causing trouble around here... much."

She donned her most deliberately innocent expression, the one that you _know_ was hiding horns and a tail.

Shenzel poured Fantasia another cup of tea and absently wondering if giving her too much sugar was a good idea. "Kitsune?" Shenzel wondered, quirking an eyebrow.

Fortunately, the sheer joy of being comfortable and warm seemed to be counteracting the natural effects of caffeine and sugar on Fantasia, at least for the moment. Gaia alone knew whether that would last the night, though!

"Yup, kitsune!" Fantasia replied, adding sugar to the tea before curling back up again. "Werefoxes. Tricksters. All-round no-accounts. Heh. Thought I was just another Glass Walker til dad showed up."

"The slightly-less-than wolfish appearance wasn't the first clue?" Shenzel said.

"Welllll..." Fantasia giggled. "Ya gotta remember, Glass Walkers aren't exactly the most pure bred of the tribes so they tend to look a bit scruffy when they're sprouting fur. You wouldn't believe the number of times I heard someone quip off some wise remark about someone definitely being drunk that night and adding something weird to the gene pool." She smirked. "Only got worse when I got my first extra tail."

Shenzel coughed and said, "Yeah, I would imagine so... That isn't exactly normal for wolves, no..."

"You're telling me!" Fantasia grinned. "Freaked everybody out, including me, thought it was some kinda mutation or something. Turns out that it's a pretty normal thing for the kitsune, though, getting more tails as they get older and, theoretically, wiser. I'm up to eight now, so that kinda puts a hole in the 'wiser' boat. Heh."

"I can't say I ever particularly had any experience with kitsune..."

"Not surprising," Fantasia shrugged. "They started out in Japan and pretty much stayed there for the most part. Dad was a bit of an exception, though, and ended up in the good ol' US. Course," she takes a sip of her tea and continues quietly, "the fact that mom kinda ran off and he lost track of me after threw a bit of a wrench in _that_. Hence, the Glass Walkers."

"Why would someone care to walk on glass? Wouldn't that be dangerous?"

Fantasia snickered, a flicker of mirth returning to dark eyes. "Silly. They were the Iron Riders back when you were walking around, changed the tribe name in the early part of the twentieth century sometime after the Industrial Revolution."

"I'm not sure why they'd care to ride iron either. It doesn't tend to move much."

"Took the name from the trains that spread the cities across the US, I think," Fantasia replied. "The tribe's always had a thing for innovation and technology, not to mention a fondness for the comforts of a home in the city."

"I see, yes," Shenzel said, pouring herself some more tea as well. "Not exactly things I was too especially interested in in my youth."

Fantasia chuckled, pointedly looking around, and then taking another sip. "Dunno, looks like you have a streak of that yourself. Sure beats hell out of living in a cave or out in the woods."

"Who said anything about technology? That's a _magic_ refrigerator."

Fantasia smirked. "Ever heard the old saying 'If it walks like a duck, and it talks like a duck...'? Besides, there's another old one about sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic. Know all about that one, seen some really crazy stuff done with it."

"But on the bright side, it means I don't need to worry about power lines or plumping."

"There is that," Fantasia replied, chuckling. "Either way, all the comforts of home without the drawbacks of the dark and dreadful. Something to be said about being able to curl up on a blanket with some pillows and good company in front of a nice, warm fireplace."

"Well, I do occasionally entertain guests out here and such. I remember back when this world was created, and how Kestas and Malak's children grew up, and Silver came to live on the edge of the Quiet Sea in the valleys down below the mountains with his own children, and the elves built Fesirya Kren and..."

"Elves built Fesirya Kren, huh? Why does that not surprise me..." Fantasia chuckled, then shook her head. "Sounds like you get to deal with all sorts of fun stuff, me I'd rather be the little fox hiding in the shadows and doing my own thing. Too much attention is invariably a Bad Thing."

"Meh, who was I to get attention? The elves didn't care about the shapeshifters, and very often even the other shapeshifters didn't care about me, only the werewolves I hung around with. And I doubt most of them even had any idea what a 'Theurge' was."

Fantasia chuckled. "Oh, they might not know what one was, but you can bet they'd learn it after the first time you healed em. Theurge, the Garou answer to the modern battlefield's call for a medic. Anyway," she shrugged, "Sounds like you're selling yourself a little short there, considering old Grumpy Mc Fuzzbutt's reaction."

Shenzel shrugged. "Healer. Soul Mage. Those are the only terms they tend to use around here. And he's a bit of a strange one. But I did spend a good deal of time up north with them there."

"That's pretty obvious," Fantasia chuckled. "I don't think Gaia ever made her way out this far, yet he was quick enough to lay the credit for saving our hides at her feet."

"That's what some of them call Kestas, the feminine aspect of Shazmar," Shenzel explained. "Whether there's any real connection or not, I don't know. But she _did_ create this world, so close enough I suppose..."

"Yeah, I suppose," Fantasia replied, then grinned faintly. "Don't mind me, just been a long and strange day, and coming from me that's saying a lot!" Mines of Moria, funny money, hungry volcanos, and wereskunks... no way that anyone would believe even _half_ of that if she mentioned it back home.

"I imagine so. If you're tired, I've got some extra beds upstairs. Curling up in front of the fireplace is also an option," she said pointedly with a smirk at Thorn.

Thorn sniggered and put away her teacup.

"Yeah, probably not a bad idea," Fantasia smiled, then glanced over at Thorn and grinned. "That fireplace sounds awfully cozy right now, though, a good thing I don't take up much space unlike big old cats."

Thorn chuckled softly and stretched.

Morin said, "I'll opt for the bed, myself.. after a bath or something..."

Probably wouldn't be able to sleep, not with the caffeine and sugar Fantasia could already feel buzzing around a bit, but it _would_ be nice to curl up and drowse a bit in front of the fire.

"Thanks," she said to their hostess with a smile, then set the cup aside before shifting down into four-footed form. She looked over her shoulder at the single tail and snorted, the others sprouting out in a fan as she pranced across the floor.

Thorn went furry and loped into the living room afterward to sprawl out in front of the fire.

Fantasia followed after, curling up into a tight white ball of fluff near the fireplace, dark eyes and button nose poking out from the floof of fur. Sleep? Doubt it, but watching the fire and being warm was good.

Thorn was dozing in moments, like any cat when confronted with a warm, cozy fireplace.

Ease doesn't return quite so readily to Fantasia, though the flickering dance of the flames is at least soothing. She knows she should be tired, they'd been constantly on the move for too long now and it couldn't _all_ just be the tea... flicking her ears in disgust a while later, she quietly uncurled and pads back out of the living room. Maybe some fresh air would do it, she muses, shifting to hybrid as she heads for the door.

Morin and Shenzel had already by this point disappeared upstairs and Thorn was too well asleep to notice. The blue star Shazmar was absent from the sky so it must be what passed for "night" on Daresa.

Fantasia wasn't really looking for anyone or anything, her expression carefully neutral as she circled silently around the cabin... careful to avoid the resting spot of the cranky Lupus, and sought out a quiet spot. Seeing Luna again would be good right now, she mused, but that wasn't going to happen _here_, now was it? She settled to the ground in silence, gazing pensively up at the starlit sky, letting her mind wander.

The bright, unnaturally colored stars drifted past slowly. Vibrant pink, green, blue, purple, as well as ones might reasonably expect stars to be like yellow, red, and white. At least it wasn't Torn Elkandu's strange purple sky, though.

* * *

**A/N: Thanks for reading!  
**

**Fantasia, Thorn, and Morin next appear in The Eighth Septenniel Grand Elkandu Magic Competition.  
**


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